


The Illusion Of Wellness

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Ethics And Existentialism In Hell [3]
Category: Marvel, X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Christmas Shopping, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, F/M, Family Dynamics, Grief/Mourning, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Logan is a good dad, Love, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Memories, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Prison, Recovered Memories, Repressed Memories, Sexual Content, Sibling Rivalry, Terrorists, Violence, keeping secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Four years after being recaptured by Weapons Plus and suddenly becoming a parent at the same time, Logan's healing factor has noticeably slowed, but he otherwise seems to be doing better than ever. His family is thriving, he's doing well at his job, and even his psychotic half-brother Victor seems to be nearing mental stability for the first time in decades. But, as always with the Wolverine, not all is as it seems. A secret only shared by Beast isn't brought to light until an incident with some terrorists lands Logan behind bars in the Vault. Victor, nearly over the line into sanity, takes matters into his own hands when it comes to his brother's incarceration.





	1. Forget

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of this series, and the last one. Usual disclaimer: don't want to be skewered, Liev Schreiber, etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this is nowhere near done, I'm just posting the first chapter now because... because. There's about a 97% chance that it'll take forever for me to finish, though.

 

It made him really glad there was such a thing as wireless over-ear headphones, because that meant the room was completely silent except for the faint _scritch-scratch_ of his pencil.

Brian’s tongue was poking slightly from the corner of his mouth as he drew, his fingers creating each line through the sharpened-down little tool. Sketching was the only thing that held his attention - his brain would generally scatter wildly after about five minutes or so otherwise, which was a huge problem during class. He wasn’t stupid or anything, but the inability to focus meant he was a D-average student.

But drawing.

Actually, he generally had an A in art class, which drove his uncle crazy. The typical rant was something along the lines of “God dammit, kid, can’t you pay any fuckin’ attention to shit that actually matters?” The answer was no.

Brian was lounging on his bed right then, waiting for dinner and knowing there was _something_ he was supposed to be working on but having no clue what it was. Instead he was on his back, knees up with his sketch pad propped against it, and his right hand slowly bringing purpose and relief to what had been a blank white sheet. The picture wasn’t even inside his head, but rather gradually flowing onto the page from his fingers. He already knew what it was, though, even with it only crawling to life before his eyes.

Across the room, Milo and Patrick, his best friends and roommates, were duking it out in the latest release of Mario Kart. Brian didn’t play video games, though, unlike most of the guys. He couldn’t even pay attention to a TV screen, so he just didn’t see the point.

As he placed the next thin line, the sound of feet and a familiar scent approached, making him smirk. His internal clock, and his watch, read 4:15 PM. _Right on time._ And then Laura barged right in without knocking.

“Homework.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian scoffed, not looking at his cousin. “I know the drill, Fatso.”

Laura snarled predictably at the jab - he called her that because she was so skinny he could probably wrap his hands around her twice. The only thing his cousin hated more was when Logan addressed her as “Shorty,” because even though Laura was almost as tall as Jean, she still only came up to her dad’s shoulder.

“He’s gonna kick your ass.”

“When does he _not_ kick my ass?” Brian snorted, rolling his eyes. “Dude. If Uncle Jimmy ever smiles and says I did a good job, I’mma have him checked in case it’s because he’s _dying._ ”

“Well, stupid, if you’d just do what he says, he’d prob’ly like you a lot more.” Laura scooped up Brian’s backpack and opened it, dumping its contents all over him to eventually scatter across his bed. “Homework. _Now._ ”

“Jesus fuck, think you’re my mother or something,” Brian grumbled, flipping his sketch pad closed and tossing it aside. He tucked the dwindling pencil behind his ear. “Plus, maybe he’ll forget. Isn’t he busy getting ready?”

“He’ll still kick your ass. C’mon, I’ll spell all the words for you like always.”

“You better, Fatso.”

Laura punched him, hard. How did he always forget her hands had adamantium, too? She had no sense of humor; even Logan managed to be sarcastic, but Laura was serious enough to give Scott a run for his money. Actually, last year she had during class once if he remembered right-

Fingers snapping in his face. Brian jerked back and glared at his cousin: “Knock it off.”

“Get to work, then,” Laura snarked, grabbing his geometry textbook and shoving it into his lap. “And this time, don’t forget that radius and diameter _aren’t_ the same thing.”

“Yup,” Brian grunted dismissively, flipping the stupid thing open and glaring down at the page. Something about A side and C side of a trapezoid being this and such of a number, but D side is this number, so based on the angles solve for B side’s length… and which one was acute again? He wasn’t sure, and in the end he just guessed. There were only 10 questions tonight, which didn’t sound like a lot, but one of them had, like, six parts. And half the time he didn’t bother, just putting in random numbers, because the other half were the only ones he actually got. Out of those, there were only a few he thought he had the right answer for.

“Hey!” Laura shrieked at him. “English next!”

What? Oh. Brian hadn’t even realized he’d picked up his drawing again.

“I need a break,” he tried to protest.

“You’re full of shit,” Laura countered flatly. She pitched _Brave New World_ at him from where she sat cross-legged on Milo’s bed. “Get reading.”

Brian groaned, reluctantly putting his work in progress down again and flipping to the bookmark. Woman dying, chocolate eclairs, kids being brainwashed. Beta, alpha, gamma, which ones were which again? He thought the betas were the normal ones, maybe. And chocolate eclairs. Hmm, he liked pastries. Maybe he’d get to eat some chocolate eclairs this weekend when-

“Brian,” Laura growled, “rereading the same sentence twenty times doesn’t count.”

“Huh?” he answered stupidly. Then he growled and threw the book back at her. “This is fucking dumb, I don’t even remember any’a what’s going on in that story.”

“They grow people in jars,” she replied, sounding as if she didn’t know how unhelpful that statement actually was for him.

“Whatever. Seriously, can you just do this one for me? None’a that shit’s been sticking, I got no idea what it’s about or anything that I’ve already read.”

“You’re pathetic,” Laura muttered, but apparently took pity on him because she scribbled out a chapter summary for him and tore out the sheet of notebook paper. “There. Now just copy that down so that Iceman doesn’t know you cheated.”

“Y’know, one time last year I stole one of your old book reports, erased your name and turned it in with mine, and he didn’t even notice.”

“You’re a piece of shit, Brian.”

“I know, I’m okay with it,” he grinned, copying her summary onto his own paper so that it would look like he’d done it. “Plus it means I’ll have more time to Skype my dad tonight.”

“He got turned down again?”

“Yeah, it’ll be another year at least. I guess he forgot his meds and attacked someone again.” Brian sighed, his cocky expression fading. “Sometimes I don’t think he’ll ever get out. He’s on more drugs than Uncle Jimmy at this point but them SHIELD guys still keep him locked up.”

Brian stopped talking and scooped up his sketch pad, ignoring the look he got from his cousin when he started planting lines again. At least she didn’t say anything about it this time.

He didn’t realize how much time had passed until the scent of another family member nearing startled him away from his artwork - Logan, to collect them for dinner. But by himself. Aunt Jean was, unsurprisingly, much too busy to stop for something as insignificant as food.

“Hey, both’a you, grub’s on,” Logan grunted, leaning his head in through the open door to speak and then taking off without waiting to see if they followed.

“Uncle Jimmy, are you sick?” Brian blurted out, hardly realizing the words until after they’d escaped him.

Logan stopped dead in the hallway and slowly turned, hazel eyes now flashed to green in shock. “What?”

“Uh, you smell… wrong,” Brian confessed, twitching a little under the piercing gaze. “I think you might be sick.”

“I ain’t sick,” Logan snapped, wearing his trademarked _I’ll-fucking-gut-you-if-you-keep-this-up_ expression.

The trio made their way to the cafeteria in tense silence. Brian couldn’t shake the feeling from his earlier assessment; his uncle’s scent was somehow _off,_ only faintly, but enough to be noticeable. It was the same as when one of his friends caught a cold, the lightest hint of extra white blood cells. Huh, okay, apparently he _did_ have a shred of memory from Dr. McCoy’s biology lesson this morning.

Laura shared a look with him; she’d caught it, too, and was now subtly worrying over her dad. Logan had never been sick, ever, for any reason in the four years since they’d been rescued and met him. There was no way this meant anything good, especially if he acted so offended by the fact that it hadn’t gone unnoticed. That alone said he already knew.

* * *

 

When Logan woke up the next morning, Jeannie was still passed out heavily, on top of the blankets with yesterday’s clothes and her shoes still on. That made him smirk - even disheveled, so exhausted she’d sat down in the hall and fallen asleep right there, she would never be anything but stunningly beautiful to him. Even when he’d carried her up to the third floor and she’d drooled on his shirt a little.

“Keep restin’, baby. You earned it,” Logan whispered, pressing a light kiss to her smooth cheek before getting up.

Shrugging on a crumpled flannel that had been sticking out from under the bed, he left the bedroom without changing out of his sweats or even putting on socks. He had a mission, Jean was still out, his kids were in class. Nobody would catch him, and he knew for a fact that Hank was free in the morning. One or two curious looks hit him when the odd student passed by, but he ignored it. They didn’t matter.

“Hey furball, you in?” Logan called out when the doors had slid open.

“Of course. I presume you’ve arrived for your medications?”

The furry blue mutant appeared from around some corner.

“Yeah, get on with it,” Logan grumbled, sitting on the nearest exam table and holding out his arm.

Alcohol swab, large bore venous catheter, fluid line of nasty shit that made him feel like he’d been nuked. Logan had very quickly learned more about medical science than he’d ever cared to know before. And then the usual fistful of psychiatric medications that made Wolverine sit down and shut up.

“Did Jean make it upstairs last night? She was quite spent.”

“Nope. Hauled her up there, actually, an’ she still ain’t up yet. I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to make her, though. She needs a good sleep. Been frantic, y’know? Nothin’ ever gets _exactly_ right an’ all. Even looked like she was gonna kill _me_ a couple’a times yesterday, too.”

Hank chuckled and passed over a paper cup of water so that Logan could down his various drugs. “It’s quite normal, I assure you. Don’t take it personally.”

“I ain’t,” Logan grunted after he’d choked down the drugs. “’Ro told me that, too, an’ that it don’t matter none how much damn furniture I shove ’round ’cause she’s doin’ a helluva lot more work. I’mma just be thrilled at the end’a this shit, an’ even better when my fur grows back…”

“Ah, yes, I believe she mentioned something along the lines of forcing you to shave your whole face even if it means she holds you in place and does it herself.”

“Yeah, you keep laughin’ over there, furball,” Logan growled. “You don’t gotta worry ’bout it, or havin’ your face look stupid if you do shave.”

“I can assure you, my friend, the only females in this building who don’t find you near-irresistible are the ones who simply aren’t interested in men,” Hank smiled.

Logan snorted, rolling his eyes. “Hey, long as it ain’t Scooter who’s checkin’ out my ass, I ain’t gotta problem with that.

They both shared a snicker, not only for Logan’s jab at Scott’s (sometimes suspicious) sexuality but also equating him with a teenage girl. Hank was friends with everyone, including Scott, but he was one of the few people Logan was comfortable with. It felt good to laugh together.

“Of course not during this week, but when are you-”

“Never,” he snapped, instantly serious again. “Now quit askin’. Patient confidence an’ all’a that.”

“Confidentiality,” Hank corrected. “And whether you do or not, she _will_ find out.”

“I don’t give a shit. The longer the better, it ain’t gonna help none when she does. ’Sides, you said you can fix me.”

“No, Logan. I merely stated there is a _chance_. Nothing more, nothing less. There are no guarantees here, especially considering your mutation, your high alcohol consumption, the cigars, among other factors. Addiction to such substances indicates-”

“Don’t fuckin’ care, don’t wanna hear it,” he broke in, shaking his head. “A’ready heard it from you ’bout eight thousand times by now, furball. Assume I a’ready know what you’re gonna say to me an’ don’t waste your breath. I ain’t tellin’ Jeannie an’ I don’t wanna hear you say it again, you understand?”

“Yes, though I do not agree. Your actions will invariably damage the situation eventually.”

“Well _that’s_ fuckin’ unusual, ain’t it? Look, furball. I ain’t lettin’ this out until I don’t got no other choice. Can’t have it be otherwise, so you gotta keep this on lockdown.”

They stopped arguing after that, both knowing they were still in the same stalemate that had kept them butting heads for several months now. The IV bag couldn’t have drained fast enough, and once it was finally empty Logan exited the infirmary in maintained silence. Normally this stale interaction didn’t make him any more cranky than usual, but today was already going to be bad; at the end of each month Logan would go to visit his brother in The Vault (mainly at the professor’s insistence), and after four years there was still nothing that could make him look forward to it any less. This was the worst day of the month, every time.

Back up in the room he shared with Jeannie, he smiled a little to see that she was still out cold. Yesterday, and the last couple of weeks especially, had been very tough on her, so he was glad she was finally resting. Crossing the room, Logan gently slipped her shoes off, followed by her outer clothes and socks. He loved that Jean was wearing one of his wife-beaters under her turtleneck. Once only in his shirt and her underwear, Logan didn’t try getting the bedding out from under her; he just flipped the other side across her and planted a light kiss on her forehead.

Once that was taken care of, Logan turned back to himself. He didn’t bother taking a shower, just giving himself an extra swipe of deodorant before throwing on yesterday’s clothes. Stained gray work pants and an orange flannel later, he went over to his dresser and couldn’t help but grin. Four years ago, between some creative fudging and the info they’d gotten from his brother, Hank and Jean had come up with all his documents.

Social security card - 331-97-0024; birth certificate - JAMES LOGAN HOWLETT (ELIZABETH HOWLETT/THOMAS LOGAN), Foothills Medical Centre, 11 February 1973, 4.41 kg; high school diploma from Xavier’s school (which he thought was absolutely hysterical); driver’s license for the state of New York; certificate of dual citizenship for the US and Canada; passport that had supposedly been issued in Alberta.

It still made him feel warm. Logan had been thrilled to receive all his counterfeit legal papers at the same times his kids had gotten them. It made him feel real, like he actually existed, and the fact Jean had picked the date of his rescue for his birthday was touching. It was also funny that his documents claimed him to be 50 years old, simply because that was about how old he looked, when really he’d be 194 in a few months. But it fit together perfectly. Laura was 15, Jean was 42. The timelines worked.

Logan stuffed his wallet into his pants and yanked on his boots. His brother had privileges now to Skype with Brian every day (not bad for three and a half years, he’d thought sarcastically upon learning this), but Logan couldn’t suffer Victor’s presence more than once a month, so even though he was allowed to visit more often he simply didn’t. He scrawled across a yellow post-it - _Jeannie, went to Vault, be back about 15:30. Logan._ \- and stuck it over the door handle before clipping his keys to his belt loop.

Passing the kitchen on his way out saw Brian having a snack between classes.

“Hey, kid.”

“Yeah?”

“I’mma go see your dad until this afternoon, after school come find me though. Wanna talk to you ’bout somethin’.”

“Okay, Uncle Jimmy. I’ll try to remember.”

Logan’s eyebrows came together: “Jesus, kid, I ain’t gonna belt you. Don’t gotta look like you’re facin’ the firin’ squad every time I say I wanna tell you somethin’.”

“Um, okay,” Brian nodded, not looking convinced.

Rolling his eyes, Logan dropped it and headed into the garage. His bike needed a tune-up, so he climbed into his battered blue pickup truck instead. Taking a deep breath to swallow his loathing, he turned the engine and braced himself for spending an hour with his brother in prison.


	2. Healing

It was about 12:30 when he arrived at The Vault, because the trip one way took almost two hours. It made him wonder, not for the first time, just exactly where this damn place was if it took a bullet train an hour and a half after the 28-minute drive to the office at the other end of the track. He knew they did something insane like 300 miles an hour.

“Mr. Howlett,” the guard nodded behind the desk. Good, it was Benton today. He wasn’t such a bad guy. “You know the drill, man.”

“Yup,” Logan nodded, accepting the yellow non-staff personnel badge. It had his name and picture, but the SHIELD guards hung onto it for him so he wouldn’t lose it in the outside world.

He only had the number codes that would enable him to get to Block C and back, and he hadn’t even been trusted with those until he’d been coming to see his brother for about a year and a half. By now, though, pretty much all the guards knew him and didn’t question his presence or why he was alone. For the most part, even with his healing factor very gradually slowing, he was more capable than any of them were to handle a violent situation.

Sabertooth’s cell. He still had very few privileges, but aside from letting him use Skype every day they also allowed him one comfort: he had a roll of Scotch tape so that he could hang up the drawings Brian sent him on his walls.

“Jimmy,” the wild mutant nodded.

“Victor.” Logan scanned his badge on the wall and the force field opened for ten seconds, allowing him to slip the latest sketch through the one slit in the foot-thick glass. “What kinda food today?”

“Mechanically separated chicken pressed into a loaf and four crackers.”

“Well, y’know, if you didn’t peg your meals back an’ try to escape, they’d prob’ly still be givin’ you somethin’ to eat that actually looks like it was meant for human consumption. You got nobody to blame but yourself, bub.”

“It was just the one time,” Victor snickered, shifting on the floor so that one knee was up and he was resting his arm on it while leaning sideways on his other hand. “So. Brian said you’re gettin’ hitched this weekend.”

“Yup.”

“Well, least I ain’t gonna be the only one in prison no more.”

“You say that like it weren’t my idea,” Logan snorted, even knowing it had been meant as a joke.

“I’m crushed, Jimmy. How come I ain’t invited?” Victor shook his head, a sarcastic almost-grin baring the fangs on one side of his mouth. “Could’a been fun.”

“Ran outta paper,” he answered, and they both snickered. This was about as friendly as they ever got with each other, but it wasn’t really by choice on Logan’s part. He did it on Charles’ suggestion for the sake of his nephew’s happiness. “Gonna be gone for a couple’a weeks outta state. Miss Thanksgivin’, but I don’t give a shit ’bout that holiday, so it don’t matter none to me. Also means they ain’t gonna make me do all the heavy liftin’ for the damn Christmas decorations.”

“Bet that’s why you’re here right now, too,” Victor grinned. “Your woman drivin’ you crazy in last-minute panic. Heard ’bout that some, all’a that big production an’ money.”

“Nah, weren’t even up yet when I left. ’Sides. Only until Saturday, then all’a the drama tones down. An’ I ain’t the one payin’, neither. Chuck’s frontin’ the whole bill. Only thing I really gotta bitch ’bout is wearin’ a fuckin’ tux, an’ no, you ain’t gettin’ pictures’a that, so don’t ask.”

“Y’know, Jimmy, you been tied before…” Victor offered slowly, his tone uncharacteristically serious.

Logan sighed and shook his head. “Look. I ain’t got too much’a my life left from before… well, before. Only twenty-one years’a memories, an’ most’a them’re painful shit. Got a few, ’Nam, liberatin’ Dachau, eatin’ outta dumpsters… don’t got nothin’ good from then. So I don’t wanna know. Ain’t no way it ended well, so I don’t wanna know no more ’bout it, you understand?”

“Didn’t end well,” Victor answered, not looking at him. “Weren’t your fault, though. Feel like you oughta know that part.”

“Hm.”

They were quiet after that.

* * *

 

The only reason Brian remembered to talk to his uncle after class ended was because Laura had helpfully written it across his right arm in big block letters with a Sharpie. It would probably take him a week to wash off, but he couldn’t fault its effectiveness.

Brian swung by his room briefly so that he could throw his orange backpack onto his bed, then discovered Logan down in the kitchen cramming the last chunk of a raw steak down his throat and chasing it with Molson.

“Uncle Jimmy?”

“Grmph.” Logan pegged the empty bottle across the kitchen and frowned in annoyance when the glass shattered in the trash can. “A’right, uh, quality time an’ all that. C’mon.”

Brian followed him out into the woods. He could smell his dad on Logan’s clothes, as well as that same hint of wrongness he’d noticed yesterday. This time, though, he didn’t say anything about it, not wanting to get barked at again. It wasn’t even dinnertime yet but the world was already darkening around them, making the air seem colder and harsher than it really was, and the lifeless gray branches didn’t help the illusion now that the leaves had fallen.

“Why are we out here?” Brian asked finally, watching his uncle settle on a boulder he frequented while his hands fumbled with his lighter.

“’Cause this, uh, I’mma talk ’bout a few diff’r’nt things an’ I figured it’d be easier havin’ this chat man-to-man. Siddown, kid. We ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon.” Logan’s eyes followed along as Brian planted himself on the ground with a tree at his back. “Okay. So… kinda been thinkin’ ’bout some shit, ’specially cause me an’ your aunt ain’t gonna be here for a couple’a weeks comin’ up. You ain’t ever really been away from us since you got here, an’ you’re big enough now to know we ain’t gonna be around forever.”

“But you heal,” Brian frowned. “Like me and Laura.”

A snort.

“Yeah, well… got fucked up in the lab we pulled you from. Jeannie don’t heal at all, that ain’t her thing, an’... mine’s slowin’ down. Eventually it ain’t gonna be there no more, or just not be strong enough to save me. This ain’t gonna be anytime soon, kid, so don’t go losin’ your shit ’bout this. But someday, we’re gonna die, you understand? Most’a your friends, too. You an’ Laura an’ your dad’ll still be kickin’ ’round, but when you ain’t in school no more, when you’re out in the world, anythin’ you do, you gotta think real hard ’bout first. I ain’t gonna tell you which one to take, but you’ll have two choices. You can stay away from everyone an’ everythin’, an’ just be pretty much by yourself for… hell, I dunno, prob’ly forever. Or you can get attached… have friends, love, whatever. Anythin’ you want. An’ then you’ll eventually lose all’a it, every time, ’cause they ain’t gonna live that long. Either way, boils down to ’bout hangin’ 'round until the end’a time, an’ it’s gonna suck no matter what you do.”

“Well… that’s really depressing, Uncle Jimmy. Isn’t there a way to, um, y’know… make me and Laura like you? So that our healing will stop someday, too?”

“Nope. A’ready thought’a that… truth is we don’t gotta fuckin’ clue what that shit was I got hit with, but it fucked somethin’ up in my bone marrow or somethin’... I dunno. We don’t got no way to re-do it ourselves. But I ain’t tellin’ you this to make you sad, kid. I’m tellin’ you ’cause you gotta be ready for it in advance. I found out the hard way.”

“Are you scared of dying? I heard people are sometimes.”

“Nope. Not even a little. The shit I been through… death’ll be like gettin’ tickled after it. ’Sides. I been ’round long enough, ’bout twice as long in the tooth as the oldest livin’ human by now. Only guy older’n me’s your dad, by just a couple years. That ain’t the point, though… I dunno how it was for Victor, a’right? Maybe the loneliness, maybe just doin’ nothin’ but violence… somethin’ got to him eventually. Stopped bein’ my brother. Until a few years ago, when Hank got ahold’a him, he was just a killer an’ nothin’ else.”

“Do you remember him like that?” Brian couldn’t help but ask. “Y’know, being your brother instead?”

“Not really,” Logan admitted with a sigh. “Just know Victor weren’t always like this. But he hurt so many people. An’ that’s somethin’ else I gotta talk to you ’bout, kid. Uh, don’t know too much ’bout how all’a this goes down. Somethin’ with chemicals an’ hormones an’ pheremones an’ shit. I ain’t smelled any girls on you, yet, but sooner or later you’re gonna start chasin’ them.”

“I only chase squirrels,” Brian informed his uncle matter-of-factly. “I don’t run girls into corners and try to eat them. Um, I think about them sometimes, though.”

“Yeah, see, chasin’ prey an’ chasin’ girls ain’t the same thing. Chasin’ prey is for blood an’ protein an’ all’a that. Chasin’ girls don’t got nothin’ to do with actual chasin’, just means you like the way they smell an’ you start wantin’ to put your dick in them. You understand? An’ here’s the thing, kid. They ain’t always gonna want you to. In fact, prob’ly most’a them won’t. An’ there ain’t a damn thing you can do ’bout it. Your dad, though, he weren’t so good at takin’ no for an answer. Made them. Hurt them by makin’ them do it, an’ that ain’t okay. _Ever._ You can’t do that, an’ I’ll know if you do. I’ll smell her on you, an’ her fear, an’ if I do I’mma castrate you myself.”

Brian swallowed hard, but he was also kind of pissed.

“I don’t think I’d do things like that, Uncle Jimmy. Plus most girls don’t like me too much, neither, so I just kinda stay away from them.”

“Good,” Logan nodded, leaning his elbows onto his knees and folding his hands together between them. “Saw your dad hurtin’ somebody like that, once. Only remember that one time, but… god dammit, I could’a not been there to pull him off’a her, an’... Jesus. Never mind. Beat the livin’ fuck outta him for it, an’ he got took back to The Vault after that. Here’s the thing with that, too. Ain’t no way I can let that go. I ain’t tryin’a warp how you are with your dad, kid. Just lettin’ you know how it is.”

“Why did he do it?” The question just sort of came out. “And… um, why did he let you see…?”

“Well, far as he was concerned, I weren’t nowhere near him. Actually, he was lookin’ for me, an’ she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, really… tell you the truth, though, I ain’t real sure what makes animals like him be that way. I ain’t that way, so I don’t know nothin’ ’bout it. The need to hurt’s a sickness, kid. When a man just likes the pain an’ the killin’, or when… or when you don’t wanna hurt nobody, it makes you feel so fuckin’ sick, but you don’t know no other way to get shit done.”

“Like you?” Brian almost whispered.

“Yeah, kid. Like me. So just remember that, a’right? Don’t let it happen to you, neither’a those things. Don’t let it happen like how it was with Victor, but don’t let it happen like with me, neither. Way it was for me’s worse. Knowin’ it’s wrong and carryin’ that guilt forever, ’cause you knew it’s wrong but couldn’t not do it.” Logan shook his head, then got to his feet. Night had completely fallen by then. “C’mon, enough tough shit for now. Bet there’s grub waitin’ for us inside.”

* * *

 

“Mom.”

Jean almost jumped out of her skin; it drove her crazy how Laura and Logan had the tendency to simply appear directly behind her without a sound. Taking a deep breath and trying to slow her hammering pulse, she smiled at her daughter.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were here.”

“I gathered,” Laura nodded without a single trace of irony. She had absolutely no sense of humor. “Is Dad sick?”

The question caught her totally off-guard.

“Not that I know of… why? Does he seem like he is?”

“Possibly.”

“Okay, honey, I know I’m a telepath, but you’ve yelled at me several times for trying to read your mind, so you’ll have to just tell me what you mean,” Jean reminded her daughter.

“Brian detected an anomaly in his scent yesterday. But you were busy and obsessive at the time.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just such a big production and… an anomaly?”

Laura nodded. She was every bit as smart as Logan, but it was much more pronounced in her because she wasn’t shackled by self-loathing and anxiety like he was. She’d also learned to talk in a much friendlier environment and with plenty of teachers to help correct her grammar.

“Yes. Biology isn’t my strongest subject, but according to Brian it’s an excess of white blood cells… of course, Brian isn’t reliable.”

“I see.” Jean lightly bit her lower lip in thought, having completely forgotten about what she’d been doing. “Well, did you notice any other symptoms?”

“Not yet. Only his usual level of declining health due to the weakening of his mutation.”

“His health isn’t exactly declining,” she corrected, receiving the usual cocked eyebrow in response. Even at 15 years old, Jean still couldn’t help but think it was adorable that Laura had appropriated that expression from Logan. “He’s just showing signs of aging. It’s a completely normal process.”

“Dad and Brian held a serious discussion today before dinner. He told Brian that he’s going to die.” Laura frowned, another one of her father’s trademarked looks, and tilted her head slightly. “I felt this should be brought to your attention.”

Jean couldn’t help but chuckle. “I already knew he was planning to speak with your cousin. And yes, eventually your dad’s going to die. Eventually I am, too. It’s normal, just like aging.”

“But I don’t want you to,” Laura answered stubbornly.

That, actually, was extremely surprising. Usually the girl was very clinical, almost cold or detached, except when she was being cynical or something had annoyed her. She rarely ever openly displayed affection for anyone (except Brian, which she did by forcing him to keep up with his homework and otherwise driving him crazy), and such a possessive statement was virtually unheard of. Jean didn’t quite know how to respond for a long moment. Eventually she reached out and gently took her daughter’s hands.

“Laura… it’s very, very unlikely that your dad is sick. His healing factor is getting weaker, but it’s a slow process. He’s still more than capable of fighting off any pathogens without becoming symptomatic. Okay? He’ll still be here for a long time, I promise.”

“And you too?”

“Of course,” Jean smiled, nodding. She lightly squeezed the girl’s fingers. “You know, back when your dad first came here, I would hold his hands just like this when something scared him, too. It’s okay for everyone to get scared sometimes.”

“You and Dad will be in a distant location for two weeks.”

“Yes, we will. But two weeks isn’t very long, and it’ll give you and Brian a break from him constantly badgering you about school work and your combat training.”

“When you return after those two weeks, there will be certain legal differences.”

Now, Jean had to laugh. “That has very little to do with real life, honey. We’ll still be your parents, and we’ll still love you and Brian. It’s just going to change our last names. We’ll only be three states away from New York, and if you need to talk to us we’ll have our cell phones.”

Laura nodded and was quiet for a moment. Her next question made her seem like a little girl, in a way she hadn’t been even when they’d recovered her at age 11.

“Why was Dad scared?”

“Because he thought he was giving me too many problems. He didn’t want to cause me any trouble.”

* * *

 

_Logan is tracking his cubs’ scent down the hall. They’re already in on it, of course, and are an integral part of the plan: they’ll purposely annoy Jean, put her into a cranky mood, because then she’s less likely to suspect something and will be even more surprised when he gets down on his knees for her. He can’t help the stupid grin on his face right then, because he knows he doesn’t even need to ask and it’s just a formality. But that doesn’t mean he won’t make it nice for her._

_Brian and Laura are in Rogue’s room, studying. Well, Laura’s studying. Brian keeps losing focus and asking Rogue for help because he can’t remember what he’s been doing. Rogue is more or less a surrogate aunt for his kids; having also experienced the horrors of the labs, she’s a kid sister to Logan, despite the fact that she’s a teacher and an X-Man now._

_A brief knock on the open door frame: “Hey.”_

_“Hey Dad,” Laura answers flatly from where she’s sprawled on the floor with her books. She’s only half paying attention to his presence._

_“Hi, Uncle Jimmy!” Brian yells, grinning widely and instantly losing track of the fact he’s supposed to be working. “Are we doing it today?”_

_“Doing what today?” Rogue wonders, looking from Logan to his cub and back again._

_“I’mma… hey, what’s that?” Logan interrupts himself, jerking his chin at the sphere of metal that’s shifting and reforming over her palm._

_“Just a little chunk of adamantium we picked up in one of the government facilities,” she shrugs. “I do this sometimes just to exercise. I still have Magneto’s powers, I might as well use them.”_

_“Hm… that really adamantium?”_

_“Yeah, why?”_

_Logan smirks._

_“’Cause it seems too perfect. You make, uh, two rings outta it for me? I’mma propose to Jeannie in a couple’a hours, a’ready got that ring, but I don’t got ones for us to wear after yet.”_

_Rogue breaks into a huge smile, letting the metal turn back into a solid sphere and clutching it in her palm. She rushes over and hugs him._

_“Congratulations! Wow, I was wondering when you’d finally ask her!”_

_“Yeah, well, I ain’t done it yet, but I wouldn’t if I weren’t sure.”_

_And, for once, it goes exactly according to plan - Jean’s annoyed at their kids when he sees her next, so he offers to make her feel better by climbing a tree and eating dinner out in the woods, just the two of them._

_Reaching the clearing that has his favorite boulder in it, Logan suddenly stops dead, and she gives him a confused look: “Logan? Is something wrong?”_

_“Nope,” he answers confidently. He fidgets slightly, but not out of nervousness; he’s excited and his heart’s pounding. He can’t help the grin that works its way to the surface, reaching out for one of her hands. “Jeannie, all’a this got planned, a’right? Just didn’t want you thinkin’ somethin’ was up…” Logan sinks down, never looking away, and slides the tiny object from the back pocket of his jeans with his free hand. It’s pretty simple, gold, looking in one place like two hands holding a small ruby shaped into a heart. Diamonds are boring in his opinion. He doesn’t actually ask, but just says one word… “Please?”_

_Well, who knew you could actually surprise telepaths. Jean bursts into tears, the happy kind, smiling hugely at him through them and pulling him to his feet with her arms around his neck for an intense kiss._

_“Oh my God, Logan… I thought you’d never ask,” she admits, half-laughing the words and wiping her eyes. “Of course I will, stupid. What took you so long?”_

_They both break into hysterics at that, then she yelps with delight when Logan grabs her tightly to his chest and spins her around in a circle. He can’t remember ever smiling this much, laughing this much, being so giddy. It’s wonderful._

Leaving the memory, Logan smirked to himself and snuggled up to her. He was spooned around Jeannie from behind, face in her hair, and fell asleep with these happy thoughts. He couldn’t wait for Saturday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually took the description for the engagement ring from the one my dad gave my mom. I'm practically the only person I know whose parents aren't divorced.


	3. Stubbornness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little short, but I really wanted to get something posted since I haven't updated this one in a while.

Tenseness and waiting and more tense waiting, plus being forced to sleep by himself last night. Logan, aside from being an atheist, was also firmly insistent that karma, fate and all of that was bullshit, too. But Jean couldn’t let go of that odd superstition of bad luck or whatever, so he’d spent all nine hours tossing and rolling around only to sit back up again in his empty bed. But really, aside from getting a grand total of half an hour’s rest and knowing he’d soon be cramming himself into stupid clothes that were too tight in all the wrong places and didn’t let his skin breathe, the worst part was still shaving. Being forced to part with his signature scruff was almost a loss worth mourning.

“Hhhgggrrrrr,” Logan growled to himself as he nicked the corner of his jaw. Being a super-healer didn’t mean he wasn’t pissed off by pain. A long scrape across his neck because of a careless swipe of the blade. “ _HHHGGGGRRRRRR!_ ”

Following this snarl, a scent way too similar to his own emerged, telling him that Laura had come into his room. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye when she came into view through the open bathroom door. Of course she was smirking at him like that. Nobody thought Laura had a sense of humor, but Logan knew different; it was just that he was the only one who could bring it out of her.

“You seem very cheerful this morning, Dad.”

“Grrrmph,” he rumbled in annoyance. He pushed his fingertips along the now-smooth skin, checking for spots he’d missed. Finding none, Logan splashed cold water across his face, then swiped a towel over his jaw and turned to face her. “Why ain’t you dressed yet, kid? Quit dickin’ ’round, laughin’ at the less fortunate ain’t a productive use’a your time.”

Laura shook her head. They were dressed identically (except that she had a white sports bra slightly visible under her sleeveless undershirt) and he couldn’t help wondering why she had such a thing for mimicking him in every way, right down to the beat-up gray sweatpants.

“You’re not dressed,” she pointed out, quirking an eyebrow. This was pretty routine - his daughter made it her mission in life to drive him crazy however possible. And the fact that she was the same as him in almost every conceivable way meant it virtually always worked. “And you’re _not_ less fortunate. You get to leave and go be by yourself later.”

Logan snorted.

“You’re a little shit,” he answered, though it was through a smirk. He moved past her and rummaged his closet, then pulled out the stupid tux in the clear plastic dry-cleaning bag and tossed it onto his bed. He really wasn’t looking forward to this part, at all. “Go on, scram. Go hassle your mom.”

“I was, but she kicked me out and told me to get dressed.”

“Then why the hell ain’t you done it, yet? Beat it!”

After forcing her out, Logan wrestled the torturous articles of clothing onto his body and straightened everything out as best he could. Of course, when he left his bedroom Rogue immediately pounced him, fidgeting with his attire until he was “presentable.”

The whole shebang was set up in the multi-purpose room of the mansion, which was normally used for Charles’ stupid fundraising things that Logan always got roped into attending. He’d spent the past week shoving around tables this way, no that way, no back to the first way again, and making god damn sure the metal folding chairs were positioned in exactly lined-up rows. To be perfectly honest, Jean had driven him crazy with this, and it had only gotten worse when ’Ro had showed up and helped her drive him crazy. The only small mercy had been when Jeannie had caught their cubs watching and laughing silently, because after that she’d made them suffer with him.

Speaking of which. He needed to go check that Laura and Brian were actually getting dressed like they were supposed to. Honestly, it was mostly his nephew he worried about - Brian was very likely to stop half-clothed and start drawing because he’d completely forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. He’d certainly done that before, arriving to breakfast in his sneakers and track pants but no shirt.

His brother’s son was getting dressed, actually, but immediately started laughing when Logan came in. “You look so stupid like that!” Brian giggled.

“Wanna feel how hard I can punch, kid?” Logan threatened, balling his left hand into a fist but not releasing his claws.

“You punch me in training,” Brain shrugged, still grinning but also slipping on his dress shirt.

“No, I said _how hard_ I can punch,” he growled. “It ain’t the same as trainin’, I can hit a lot harder’n that.”

“Thought you’re s’posed to be, like, happy or whatever today, Uncle Jimmy.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t. I’m cranky an’ I wanna get this part over with ’cause it’s a huge pain in my ass, an’ you ain’t helpin’, neither.”

Before he knew it, Logan was herding both his hellions into the multi-purpose room and shoving them into chairs in the front row, making it clear on no uncertain terms (especially to Brian) that they were to sit down, shut up, and not try anything “funny.”

It didn’t take too long for everyone else to gather inside as well, despite it only being 8:30 in the morning. They were doing it first thing largely because Logan and Jean would be spending about half the day driving after, so they wanted to get that part done with as soon as they could.

Standing stiffly in front of them all, Logan’s eyes drifted across the room - so many students, because the percentage of the population with active x-genes seemed to be growing massively, and then three teams of X-Men.

There was alpha team, led by Scott (they handled the more diplomatic missions); bravo team, led by Logan because he and Scott just couldn’t get along (they did most of the ass-kicking); and the junior team, its members all 15 to 18 years old who were still students but in training to join one of the full-time squads once they’d graduated. Laura and Brian were both on it, though they hadn’t picked codenames yet, as well as Scott and Emma’s adopted son Alex.

Alex had been given up by his biological parents at age 10 when his mutation kicked in, which had made a compromise between Scott and Emma. Scott had always wanted to have kids, but his wife was an incredibly vain creature and hadn’t wanted her body to “suffer” being pregnant, so they’d adopted Alex. Of course it was still strange because the kid had the same first name as Scott’s brother, who’d kicked the bucket long before Logan had joined them. Alex was a good kid, though; even if Logan and Scott couldn’t agree on anything ever, Logan didn’t take it out on an innocent student. Alex had already picked his codename, too - Soundwave, because he could mentally tune into any radio or cell phone signal within a mile and a half to listen in on the bad guys.

Logan’s eyes drew briefly back to his daughter. Laura had stubbornly insisted she was going to wear black dress pants, a white button shirt and a tie just like Brian, and of course these were boys’ dress pants and a boy’s white button shirt. Laura was odd like that - half her attire was traditionally “for girls,” albeit much more subdued and tasteful than most girls’ attire, but the other half was boys’ clothing or drab gray tactical fatigues.

The last few minutes was mostly just Logan fidgeting, trying and failing to get comfortable in these stupid clothes but also sorely missing his beard. Of course, Jean had explained that away as yet another in a series of lupine instincts. Where wolves had a thick ruff of fur around their necks that made them look larger and more threatening when the need arose, Logan’s particular style of bristle that he maintained along his jaw served the same purpose. His beard didn’t fluff up when he was cold or hostile like his body hair did, but several students had confirmed that it indeed made him “look friggin’ scary.”

The professor had pulled strings, like always, to get a friend who was a legal-something-or-other to perform the ceremony on the grounds that religion was the single most evil thing Logan could think of besides the Weapons Plus program. So at least the lady was mutant-friendly. Actually, Logan and Jean had met with her prior, and she was a perfectly nice woman. Of course, having it not be religious also meant it wasn’t going to take forever because all the unnecessary bullshit was left out, just the way Logan liked it.

It went over fairly quickly: as surrogate father to the original X-Men, Charles gave Jean away, the legalities covered, promising not to be dicks to each other or give up on one another either. Then Logan kissed her and it was done. A huge stupid grin found him that he couldn’t get rid of, and they hung around a little after that because cake and getting way too many congratulations from students and staff. Logan and Scott even exchanged a frigid handshake.

A couple of people made toasts, which Logan was fine with because it meant he got to drink finally. And then everyone threw loose grains of rice at them, the reason for which he couldn’t possibly understand.

“Ten-fifteen,” Logan muttered approvingly, glancing at the watch on his right wrist. It had been a get-well gift after he’d been rescued the second time.

“Worth the hassle?” Jeannie teased as they went upstairs to put on real clothes before leaving.

“Oh yeah,” Logan nodded, squeezing her hand. “Still kinda pissed you made me lose the fur, though.”

“Oh, stop. You’re perfectly fine looking.”

“I’m funny-lookin’ without it,” he protested, not for the first time.

“I like the smoothness,” she countered, kissing the side of his face. “And it makes you look younger, too.”

“Grmph, knew you’re only here for my sex appeal,” he joked, pulling her into his side.

Logan shed the awful formal-wear as fast as he could without using his claws, and it was all he could do not to sigh in relief once he was sliding jeans on over his boxers. As he buttoned them, he looked up, intending only to glance at her for a second. Instead, his eyes were instantly fixed, and she returned his smile as soon as she noticed.

“What?”

“Just can’t believe we’re married,” Logan admitted, his words rolling on a chuckle. “Jesus. We’re _married,_ darlin’. An’ I still ain’t really over you lovin’ a dumbass like me in the first place, neither.”

“I’ve collared the mighty Wolverine,” she teased. He watched her put on one of his short-sleeved white shirts and then a light blue sweater over it.

“You proud’a yourself much for that?” Logan reached out and pulled Jean to his still-bare chest. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment before planting a kiss. “You keep playin’ an’ makin’ looks at me like that, baby, an’ I ain’t even gonna make it outta this room with you.”

“Well, I guess we should get a move on, then,” she answered, waving over an undershirt and a flannel for him.

They did, in fact, make it out of the room, in spite of Logan’s prick trying desperately to override his brain. As his healing factor slowed, his libido had been lowering a little too, but that really just meant he’d “only” be able to have sex three or four times back-to-back instead of eight or nine like when they’d first gotten together, and that his refractory period gone from 22 to 90 seconds. So technically he was still the most virile male animal, which satisfied the feral parts of his mind.

The drive was exhausting (partly because it was more than eight hours, but mostly because they’d taken the interstate), but once they’d reached their hotel Jeannie had given his instincts free rein. They’d ended up on the floor with their things scattered in all directions as Logan rutted into her with every ounce of his strength, but she enjoyed it as much as he did. Truth be told, most of the time Logan avoided being like this with her because he still didn’t really like that part of himself, no matter how much she assured him that she loved him having her that way.

They finally stopped around midnight, mainly because they could barely move anymore, but Logan struggled into the bathroom all the same. It had a huge, luxurious tub in it that was specifically designed for a couple to soak in together, so he drew up a hot bath and carried Jean into it despite his aching muscles. His back was against the tub and her back was on his chest while he tenderly rubbed circles into her flesh with his fingertips.

“Thank you for all’a this,” Logan murmured, kissing the back of her neck and smiling. “Puttin’ up with all my stupid shit, helpin’ me raise my kids, everythin’. You’re the best thing’s ever happened to me, darlin’, an’ now we got the rings on to prove it.”

Jean twisted around slightly for a brief kiss as his hands massaged body wash into her beautiful skin.

“You had something to do with it too, you know. And there’s no _way_ you can pin the way Laura is on me, mister.”

Logan chuckled, nuzzling her right ear with the lower half of his face.

“Ah, she ain’t that bad. We don’t gotta worry none ’bout her, she’s smarter’n her age. Bet she’ll take over my job when I’m retired, actually.”

“That wouldn’t be surprising at all,” his fian-no, wife, agreed. “She won’t admit it, but she wants be to be just like her dad.”

“Hopefully she’ll be a little better’n that…”

“Oh, stop.”

“Grmph.” Logan gradually stopped rubbing and just draped his arms around Jean, relaxing them both into the rounded corner of the tub and leaning his head back. “Like I said, it ain’t her I’m worried ’bout. Brian, though…”

“He has some type of developmental delay, but Hank and I haven’t figured out what it is yet. Our best guess is a form of ADHD, but it’s impossible to be sure with his mutation.” Jean paused. “He and Laura are worried about you, you know. They said you smell sick.”

Logan rolled his eyes and forced himself not to betray anything.

“Yeah, I dunno what the fuck got into their heads this time.”

“You’d tell me if something was wrong though, right?”

“Course,” Logan lied. “’Sides, you’d know anyway. You always do.”

“Okay,” Jean nodded, clearly accepting his answer.

It was hard to keep things from telepaths, but not impossible. She knew Logan hated people poking around in his head after he’d been brainwashed, so she always stayed out unless he said she could look or it was an emergency. He didn’t want her to worry, especially since Hank could probably fix him before she found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't read every single X-Men comic ever, so if there's already a mutant who goes by Soundwave I'm sorry. I actually ripped that name off from the original Transformers cartoon because I figured it would be fitting for Alex's mutation.


	4. The Mystery Of The Lynx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a long gap between chapters, I have chronic issues with writer's block :( Also, this chapter is a little shorter than usual. I try to make about 6 pages per chapter, this one is about 4, and maybe I should abandon that standard because it's slowing me down. Anyway. I'm putting this up anyway because I haven't posted in a while and you guys deserve more.

“You owe me a new pack of orange highlighters,” Laura told him flatly as she handed back the poorly-stapled pack of notebook paper.

“Well… the fuck, Fatso! You colored in my whole thing!” Brian protested angrily, barely keeping his talons back from shredding the assignment in question.

“That’s because I have yet to read a single thing you’ve written that has more than three correctly-spelled words.”

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” he grumbled, “and you can get your own god damn highlighters.”

As always, his cousin decked him for that, knocking him backwards onto his ass. Even though Brian was already almost as tall and broad as his father, Laura seemed to be much stronger and more vicious than him by a lot. He grimaced as his left cheek bone snapped itself back into place after a moment.

“You need to type your stupid book reports like everyone else,” his cousin insisted for what was probably not the first time. “Then I wouldn’t waste so much highlighter ink pointing out your massive fuck-ups.”

“Whatever! I’ll just pay Milo to fix it for me again.”

Laura groaned. “You’re such an idiot! Learning to fix it yourself is kinda the point of me _babying_ you through your classes, y’know!”

“Look at the bright side, in three years we’ll be done with this shit, and then you’ll just have to do mission reports for me and those don’t happen every night,” Brian offered, conjuring up his most obnoxious smile.

This, of course, earned him a steel-toed combat boot to the gut. For some reason tactical garb was what Laura preferred to lounge around in when she wasn’t in a wife beater and sweats like her dad, while Brian’s yellow/black t-shirt offered no protection from the attack. Healing factor or no, the wind was more than knocked out of him for a long moment.

“Type up the fucking report. I know you swiped a laptop from someone and you have it hidden under your mattress, if you’re gonna steal from other people you might as well use the shit you take. Oh, and here, before I forget. You’re welcome.”

A printed picture of something was stuffed into his fist before she left the room. Confused, Brian smoothed out the crumpled sheet and saw the profile of an animal - one of the larger species of wild cats, called “lynx.” Well, then, apparently she’d found a codename for him.

Grinning a little, Brian instantly forgot the homework he needed to have done by tonight (tomorrow was Monday and it was due then) and scooped up his drawing pad. Recalling briefly the reflection he saw in the mirror, he sketched out a rough design for how he wanted his uniform to look once he’d graduated and became a full-time X-Man. With the FoH getting more and more militant, Logan had plugged hard for them to wear heavier body armor and the new uniforms had been adopted a couple years back.

Instead of leather/rubber bodysuits with light Kevlar inserts, now they had black military-style fatigues with hard rubber pads over their elbows, knees, shoulders, and the backs of their hands. Alpha team had level III Kevlar around their torsos, and the stylized X symbols emblazoned on their chests and upper arms were red. Bravo team, by contrast, wore level IV Kevlar on their torsos as well as hard polymer guards on their arms and legs, and their insignias were golden-orange. Junior team also had the hard plates on their limbs, though their Kevlar was only level III like alpha team, and the armor was dark blue instead of black with silver X logos.

In the drawing, Brian’s gloves were fingerless to allow for his talons and he had a guard around his neck. Brian only had adamantium implanted in his hands, so his skeleton was more vulnerable than his uncle’s, and it was theorized that complete decapitation could kill someone with his mutation. So despite his near-invulnerability, Brian had always been very careful of his neck once he’d discovered this little fact.

Having completed his sketch, Brian left his bedroom and went searching the halls by scent. Predictably, he found Mr. Summers in his office preparing Monday’s lessons. The veteran teacher looked up when he came in.

“Brian. Do you need something?”

“Check this out!” he answered excitedly, all but shoving the sketch pad into the adult’s hands. “This is what my uniform should look like when I’m a full X-Man! Also, I think I have a codename for myself!”

“I see.” Mr. Summers nodded, his tone bearing hints of indulgence and patience. “What would you like to be called?”

“Lynx. Actually Laura came up with it for me, but I really like it. Whaddaya think?”

“It’s probably more fitting than you realize,” Mr. Summers replied, handing back his drawing. “The lynx certainly isn’t regarded as a ‘big cat’ by an average person, you know. They’re not as big or well-known as lions or tigers, so people generally underestimate how fierce and dangerous they can be. That’s a lot closer than you think, Brian. Your artwork is outstanding, by the way, and you’re also a very friendly and talkative person. So I don’t think most people who don’t know you well would understand you’re probably every bit as lethal as your father.”

“Wow, really?” Brian was awestruck. He didn’t quite understand why Logan hated this guy so much, he was actually pretty smart. “That’s so cool! Laura picked something awesome for me, now I’m not even mad that she punched me earlier!”

Mr. Summers offered an exasperated sigh: “Why does your cousin beat you up?”

“Because I say annoying things and it pisses her off,” Brian answered truthfully, grinning. “It’s funny.”

“Humor notwithstanding, Brian, she doesn’t have the right to take out her anger management issues on you.”

“I mean, better me than anyone else, right? I get better in two seconds, and besides, I like, don’t even care. That’s just Laura doin’ her thing, y’know?”

“Be that as it may, she still shouldn’t be _punching_ you,” he reiterated, frowning around his opaque red sunglasses.

Brian shrugged, and then his brain switched tracks suddenly because it had been about five or six minutes on a single thought. “Hey, so, you said I can be as dangerous as my dad and people won’t know it, can you teach me how?”

Mr. Summers looked more than a little surprised at this request. He straightened up in his desk chair and adjusted his glasses before answering. “I can certainly try… are you sure you wouldn’t rather have Logan train you, though? His style of combat is very different from mine.”

Brian made a face. “Yeah, but he’s not so great at teaching me stuff like this… he’d just, like, beat me up a bunch’a times and then yell at me for not learning to do it better.”

“I see.” Mr. Summers nodded before getting to his feet. “The first thing you need to learn is focus, Brian. I’m sure you know that.”

“Yep.”

“Good. Well, no time like the present. Let’s go see if the Danger Room is free.”

Brian eagerly followed his teacher down to the basement and into the male locker room, though they didn’t don their practice uniforms. Instead, he was told to put on something light and comfortable, so he went for black army pants with his boots and a gray t-shirt with the team logo on the chest. When they both emerged, Mr. Summers had changed into track pants, sneakers and a navy spandex shirt. Interestingly, he still wore the ruby quartz glasses and not the visor.

“Incidentally, the Danger Room isn’t only for combat training,” Mr. Summers relayed casually as he scanned his badge to open the mag-locked doors. “We’ve used it to contain villains in the past so that SHIELD could take them into custody. There are also extracurricular martial arts classes that are separate from combat training, but there is no contact between students. Sparring is done without touching. Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Kung Fu, Aikido, Jujitsu, Krav Maga, even the mixed martial arts taught in military forces around the world.”

“Why isn’t it combat?” Brian questioned as the doors hissed shut behind him.

“Because martial arts aren’t just for fighting. They help you learn self-discipline, hand-eye coordination, strength… and mental focus. It helps to learn meditation along with martial arts, too, and that’s what I’m going to start with first. So here’s what we’ll do… Computer! Run program one-one-zero-dash-R-G-B.” At Mr. Summers’ command, a grid of white panels appeared in the center of the space, each one with a circle on it. “This program is actually for target practice, but it’ll work here too. Look in the middle - do you see it?”

Brian squinted hard and it took him a minute to get what his teacher meant.

“Oh… yeah! That one’s red, even though the others are all blue.”

“Good. Now sit on the floor and stare at it. Don’t take your eyes off it until I say, alright? You can blink, but don’t look at anything else or any of the blue circles, just the red one. All I want you to do right now is stare at the red circle, without thinking of anything else.”

It seemed pretty pointless, but he did what he was told. Fixing his eyes to the red circle, Brian stared like his gaze was the only thing keeping it in place. _Red circle. Red circle. Red circle. Red circle. Red circle… red. Alpha team is red and bravo team is gold. Junior team is silver-shit! Red circle! Focus, stupid! Red circle! Just the red circle. There’s nothing else but that circle._

“Okay, Brian,” Mr. Summers’ voice broke in, startling him.

“How long?” he immediately asked, looking at his teacher.

“Just five minutes. How many times did your focus wander?”

“Um, just once,” he answered honestly. “I can usually hold focus for, like, five minutes anyway. Unless I’m drawing. I can just sit and do that for hours if Uncle Jimmy lets me.”

The leader of alpha team chuckled a little at that.

“So I’ve heard. Since you draw so well, I can show you how to create tactical schematics for our missions. I’m usually the one who does it, and with everything else on my plate it wouldn’t hurt having an extra pair of hands.”

“Sure,” Brian nodded enthusiastically. “I didn’t know drawing could make me a better X-Man. Uncle Jimmy always says I should do other stuff that’s more useful.”

“Yes, well… your uncle is an extremely opinionated and stubborn man. That’s doesn’t mean he’s always right about everything. We use all kinds of skills and talents, not just fighting. Speaking of. I know you’re used to simply doing what Logan tells you, but you don’t have to all the time. And X-Men have full-time jobs, too. So, what do _you_ want to do when you graduate?”

Brian chewed his lower lip in thought for a moment. This wasn’t the only time he’d been asked about his plans for the future, but he still had no answer.

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted eventually, shrugging a little. “I guess I just want to help. I mean, my dad is Sabertooth, and Uncle Jimmy said he did a lotta bad shit and hurt a lotta people. Nobody understands why, but I love my dad anyway. That doesn’t mean I want to be like him. I wanna be like Uncle Jimmy but without the crankiness.”

“I understand,” Mr. Summers countered, surprising him. “I had an older brother named Alex, and a few years before he died he spent some time in jail. But I loved him anyway. That’s perfectly okay, Brian. Having a good relationship with Victor doesn’t make you a bad person and it doesn’t make you stupid, it just means you have one more person in your life who cares about you. That being said, I’m also relieved you’d rather be like Logan.”

“Even though you and Uncle Jimmy hate each other?”

“Yes. We don’t agree, our personalities clash and he has a completely opposite take on leadership from me. We’ve never been friends and we never will be. But I still respect him as an X-Man and as a teacher, and when it comes to things that matter he always tries his hardest.”

“But he’s always yelling at me,” Brian grumbled, feeling a little put down as he said it. Usually he wasn’t bothered by Logan’s stiffness to him. “Sometimes I feel like he thinks I can’t do anything right.”

“I see.” Mr. Summers nodded. “Let’s go talk somewhere else, someone might need the room.”

They changed back into their normal clothes and Brian was led outside. They began walking in slow laps around the grounds.

“Mr. Summers, does Uncle Jimmy hate me? I know he doesn’t like my dad all that much. Does he not like me because he doesn’t like my dad?”

“It’s hard to say,” the adult replied slowly, “but I don’t think so. From what I see when Logan interacts with you, I’m fairly sure he loves you as much as he loves Laura. He doesn’t understand that your skills and gifts aren’t the same as hers, though, and since she’s almost exactly like him he thinks you should be, too. Honestly, with your uncle, he’s probably worried that he did something wrong, and since he doesn’t understand he yells. But I’d hazard the guess that Logan just wants you to grow into the best man you can be. Trust me, if he _hated_ you, he’d let you know on no uncertain terms.”

Brian smiled a little.


	5. No Friends For Humanity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, two chapters in one day! And now I have writer's block again. -_- Will it ever end?!

“So why am I coming? Usually Laura’s the one who goes places with you,” Brian wondered.

“Because, we’re lookin’ for presents for her an’ your aunt. But I suck at buyin’ gifts an’ I wanna get somethin’ for Laura that ain’t more army fatigues, so you’re gonna help me out with that,” Logan answered.

Brian’s aunt and uncle had gotten back from their honeymoon yesterday night, and even though Logan and Jean both were always after him about his schoolwork, he was glad. The school hadn’t felt the same without them and he’d been feeling anxious about it. Sitting in the truck with Logan on the way to the mall made him anxious too, but not for that reason. He could smell the sickness on the grizzled old mutant, more than the hint he’d first detected and impossible to miss by now. Something was really wrong with his uncle.

Logan snorted suddenly, steering with his knee briefly to wipe his upper lip since his right hand had to stay on the gear shift. Iron, salt, warmth; his nose was bleeding.

“Are you hurt?” Brian instantly questioned before his brain caught up with his mouth.

“No,” Logan grunted, smearing away more blood.

“I saw on TV once that there was, like, some guy on this show about drugs, and every time he snorted something it made his nose all bloody-”

“Knock it off, kid,” his uncle snapped, glaring from the corner of his eye. “Y’know what else makes noses bleed? Cold air.”

 _It’s warm in here, though,_ he thought to himself. At least this time he had enough sense not to voice the idea.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and didn’t really talk to each other much after that besides Logan telling him to carry something or go look down a particular row. Brian sulked; despite Mr. Summers’ assurances two weeks ago, he couldn’t help feeling that Logan was sick of him or something. Everything annoyed his uncle, of course, but the only one who annoyed him more than Brian was Laura. At least Laura was Logan’s daughter, though.

“Uncle Jimmy?”

“Hm.”

“Do we really have to get all this stuff? I thought Aunt Jean don’t like getting too many presents.”

“Most’a this shit ain’t for her,” Logan grunted as they tossed their second haul into the back seats of the truck before going back for a third run. “All the teachers’n staff do gift exchangin’ for their ‘Secret Santa’ bullshit, an’ I’m the one drew the short straw so I’m pickin’ all’a this up for everyone else.”

“Oh. Well… that kinda sucks, Uncle Jimmy.”

“Yup. Ain’t me payin’ for it, though, an’ that’s the important thing.”

“You think they’ll let me send my dad a present?”

“Prob’ly not,” Logan replied flatly, clearly uncaring whether his brother received Christmas gifts. “He ain’t allowed much in there, kid.”

“I think… um, I wouldn’t wanna send him something anyway,” Brian admitted, watching the road salt-encrusted tiles pass by under his feet. “If I could give him something, I’d just wanna go see him for once.”

“Don’t hold your breath, kid.”

“Yeah.”

They passed by a group of people handing out pamphlets, but purposely ignored them when accosted. One of them gave Brian a funny look on the way by, but he forgot about it almost immediately. He was used to funny looks as it was - most of his classmates wore them around him. His parentage was no secret and it was unlikely he’d have been able to hide it if he wanted to.

“A’right, kid, this’s where you come in. The hell’s Laura into ’sides fightin’ things?”

“Um, she likes that one game on the school computers with the falling blocks.”

“Great. Anythin’ else?”

“She likes Prodigy.”

“What’s that?”

“A band. I don’t know if they still make songs, but we could get her an iTunes gift card or a shirt with them on it or something.”

“Huh, that sounds suspiciously easy,” Logan grumbled.

The pair of feral mutants poked along some and ultimately ended up getting a $50 iTunes card when the shirt was nowhere to be found. They also grabbed wrapping paper in bulk. Jean could almost effortlessly wrap a dozen gifts at once with her telekinesis, but the materials to do so were still needed.

On their way out they ran into the same group of people distributing pamphlets. This time, though, they were harder to evade, especially when one of them boldly cornered Logan.

“Sir, are you aware of the threat that mutation poses to your children?”

“Get outta my face, lady.”

“Your boy is here with you today, though, don’t you want to keep him safe?”

“You got two seconds to piss off.” Which actually meant _You have less than one second to piss off before I start swinging._

“The Friends of Humanity are working to spread awareness of the mutant thre-”

Then the one who’d been giving Brian poisonous glares suddenly pointed and started yelling, eyes wide: “That’s him! That’s Sabertooth!” And pulled a military handgun out of his coat.

Brian’s reflexes were quite honed, and given his healing factor he wouldn’t have been hurt for more than a moment as it was. But of course Logan wouldn’t have been thinking about that. All he knew was that someone was threatening his cub, and it was written across his grizzled face the instant his vision flashed red with rage. After that the claws were out and there was screaming all around, blood, more shots than could come from one pistol. Brian couldn’t keep track of it all and it was over so fast he almost didn’t believe it had happened at all…

...except for the five dismembered, decapitated and disemboweled corpses on the floor right in the middle of the mall.

Logan almost convulsed himself off his feet briefly, then coughed and spat out blood as two large pistol bullets popped from between his ribs and clattered to the filthy tiles. One look at the horrified bystanders made the old mutant grab Brian by his arm and scramble them back to the truck, then tore out of the parking lot with the gas pedal to the floor. He coughed more blood onto the steering wheel.

“Uh… well, least that was the last shopping we needed to do, right?” Brian tried to joke.

“Fuckin’ Friends’a fuckin’ Humanity,” Logan snarled, his teeth still stained red. “So fuckin’ sick’a those bastards.”

“At least there’s a few less now,” he offered, trying to help his uncle regain control of his volatile temper.

“Hhggrrrrn.”

“Yeah, I feel the same way.”

Actually, for his sarcasm, Brian was secretly thrilled. Logan wouldn’t have had that reaction if his nephew wasn’t important to him. He’d actually never felt more loved than he did now.

* * *

 

“And they attacked you and Brian in a public space?”

“That’s what I said, ain’t it?” Logan huffed impatiently. “You goin’ deaf over there, Slim?”

“Unfortunately, despite the provocation, the authorities are unlikely to conclude Wolverine’s reaction as an acceptable one,” Hank pointed out with a sigh. “Likely there will be at least a minor investigation into the X-Men as a consequence. Defending a child is quite reasonable. However, given the number of witnesses and the brutal resolution of the conflict, the facts will inevitably be confused during testimony.”

“They tried to shoot one’a my kids!” Logan roared, banging both fists into the table and rattling it. “An’ ’sides that they’re a known terrorist group! How’s any’a this my fault?!”

“It’s not,” Jean agreed, stroking his arm soothingly. “Given the facts, whether or not they’re _initially_ confused, you’re innocent. Even without your trauma issues, any parent would’ve done the same thing.”

“In any case, Dr. McCoy’s right,” Scott interjected, nodding to his furry blue colleague. “We can expect some kind of inquiry. Obviously you all know this, but just remember to stick to the truth. Really we just need to let the students know that some detectives will show up and maybe ask them questions so that they don’t get scared and cause a panic. If need be we’ll hold a press conference on the issue, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. Dismissed.”

Logan was about to leave the situation room with Jean when Hank stopped them: “Might I borrow your husband for a moment, my dear?”

“Just don’t bring him back dented,” she smiled.

Hank led him down to the infirmary.

“Violent outburst or no, you need to catch up on your medications.”

“Yeah, whatever. Get it over with.”

They talked as Hank gathered his things: “So you’re sure this was the Friends of Humanity?”

“They were paradin’ their brand in my face, bub. I’m sure.”

“Were any civilians hurt at the time?”

“None I saw… if they were, it weren’t my fault. I know who I killed but one’a them could’a been hit by a stray bullet. We didn’t stick around after that.”

“Understandable,” the other feral nodded, scribbling onto his notepad. “In any case, Logan, I strongly advise you and your children not to leave the grounds until the police have at least finished their investigation. There could be some retaliatory effects from misinformed humans, which would only draw further negative attention from all sides.”

“They thought Brian was Sabertooth,” Logan admitted, frowning. “That’s why they pulled the gun. Before that they were just annoyin’.”

“I can see how they would make sure a mistake. Unfortunately, that could be a possible liability… especially if your brother is henceforth associated with the X-Men as a result.”

“I didn’t do nothin’ nobody else wouldn’a done,” Logan growled. “I know that, you know that, an’ everybody else does, too. Those fuckin’ lunatics don’t gotta leg to stand on ’bout this.”

“Quite literally, I’m sure,” Hank chuckled.

* * *

 

The next three days were a mess. First ordinary police came to investigate, then higher-level detectives. Scott had even told them that SHIELD agents could also be expected today.

Jean, personally, was not looking forward to that at all. SHIELD barely maintained its veil of “unbiased opinion” when it came to mutants and only grudgingly trusted the X-Men on a professional level. Aside from that, Logan was starting to get anxious and generally upset at the amount of badgering he’d already been put through by law enforcement, which was taxing on his mental health. Psychologically he’d been stable for almost two years now (in any case that was how long it had been since he’d intentionally hurt himself or tried to commit suicide) but Jean didn’t want to risk it.

“We’re all over the news,” Brian sulked, picking at his lunch but taking no actual bites. “Most of what they’re saying isn’t even true, either.”

“I know, honey,” Jean nodded at her nephew. “Don’t worry, though. It’ll probably be over by the end of the month. People have very short attention spans for the news, you know.”

“Why are they even allowed to _say_ those things?” Laura growled, accidentally bending her fork from gripping it in her fist too tightly. “Those assholes attacked Brian-”

“Hey, language,” Logan snapped, interrupting his daughter.

“Hypocrite,” she threw back before continuing. “Anyway, they attacked _him,_ not the other way around. Dad didn’t start it in the first place.”

“That may be immaterial,” a SHIELD officer butted in, striding over with two others. All were in heavy body armor and carried strange-looking weapons. “James Howlett?”

“What?”

“Stand up and put your hands behind your back. You’re under arrest for multiple homicide, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and child endangerment. You have the right to remain silent. If you forfeit this right, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you.”

As the first SHIELD officer spoke, the other two grabbed onto Logan and shackled his arms behind him. The worst part was that Jean found herself helping them (though they didn’t know it); she didn’t want her husband to panic and get beaten or tranquilized into submission by the troopers, so she held onto his mind and kept him cooperative to spare him any further humiliation.

But even so, Jean would wonder for weeks after the fact - how could she help them take him away like that? How could she?

* * *

 

Logan was pretty sure this wasn’t how it worked most of the time, but for him, it was a one-way ride to The Vault. No other facility would’ve been able to hold him.

There was a whole admission process, too. They strip-searched him, took all his clothes and the things in his pockets. Every inch of him was shaved down to check for skin parasites. They gave back his boxers at least, and then one of those sky-blue jumpsuits that Victor wore. They checked his eyes, ears and reflexes, then got samples to confirm the data in his medical file. (It had helpfully been faxed over by Hank while he’d been in transit.)

Logan thought he’d be issued more clothes and at least a toothbrush, but they wouldn’t even let him keep his watch or wear socks. They clamped those adamantium cylinders over his hands that he’d seen Victor restrained in once, then magnetically locked them together in the small of his back again. An armed escort of six armored guards and an officer put him into the elevator, and then he was taken to Block C.

It was kind of surprising all the same that Logan got put into the cell with his brother.

“We’ll keep you here until your arraignment,” the officer explained. “It’ll give us time to retrofit an isolation cell for you.”

Logan didn’t say anything. Once he and Victor were sealed in but otherwise free to move about the space, he just settled on his cot facing the ceiling with his still-encased arms at his sides. He could feel Victor’s eyes on him, but was deliberately ignoring it. This was the closest to solitude he could get in a prison with a cellmate, and even just two minutes in he already couldn’t stand it. It made his instincts restless.

In his thinking mind, though, he felt the uncharacteristic need to simply give up this time. He knew they’d find him guilty no matter what he did, and then for the rest of his life he’d only get to see Jean and his cubs once a month. It wouldn’t be enough, either; he’d never be allowed to smell her, hold her, touch her hair. Laura and Brian would sit in those plastic chairs in the entry space and look at him through bars, foot-thick plate glass and a humming blue force field.

His miserable thoughts were interrupted after a while when Victor finally decided to break the silence.

“Jimmy,” the wild mutant almost whispered, “what happened?”


	6. Rats In The Mud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one is REALLY fucking short, but it was unavoidable, and also probably a time-skip is in order soon, so having this be in a chapter with something that happens months following just isn't smart. Plus I haven't posted in a while, so... *shrugs*

Jean wasted no time - she arrived at The Vault to visit her husband two days after his incarceration. (They wouldn’t let her come sooner.) Like conventional prisons, Logan had been allowed to write a list of people who were allowed to come see him once a week, but only because all the guards there knew him and thought he was innocent so they’d slipped some extra privileges into his file. If he behaved until his arraignment, he could even have the kids come see him providing the charges weren’t dropped and his case went to trial.

She hoped it wouldn’t come to that; someone along the line had to see sense about this, that Logan had reacted out of instinct to protect his nephew. The problem arose that a few years ago he’d had a panic attack in the same mall, and while nobody had been hurt, it had still scared the living hell out of the customers who witnessed it.

Arriving in the facility, the staff all gave her sympathetic looks as her non-personnel ID badge was handed over. While SHIELD as a whole didn’t have an especially good track record when it came to mutant rights, on an individual basis the members were usually okay people. Logan’s rapport with the ones here in The Vault, especially in helping them handle Sabertooth on occasion, meant that he’d probably be one of the most well-treated inmates and that he would be given any accommodations they could sneak in under the radar. At least someone knew he wasn’t at fault.

Crewe was the guard at the entrance to Block C: “If you scan your badge, it’s been programmed to put up an opaque force field around Creed’s bunk. That way you and Logan can have your privacy… from him, at least.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, I’m sorry this is happening. We’ll take care of him until he gets out.”

She nodded at him, then entered the open front section with the metal chair. Victor offered a sympathetic look once he’d noticed her, then paced over to Logan’s sleeping area and shook him a little.

“Jimmy. Your wife’s here.”

“Grmph.” Logan rolled onto his back from his side, then lifted his head and met her gaze with bleary eyes. “Can you…?”

“Yup.”

Victor sat on his own mattress in the opposite corner without protest, at which point Jean activated the privacy screen. Logan came right up to the inner bars and sat, his expression defeated. She hated that they’d trapped his hands and shaved him bald, like he was a lab animal they didn’t want escaping. She wondered if that was how he felt about it, too.

“I would’ve come yesterday, but they wouldn’t let me,” she explained, scooting the folding chair as close as she dared to the outer force field. She wanted to hug him or kiss him, touch him in some way. Not being able to was almost physically painful. “I don’t sleep very well by myself.”

“Me neither,” Logan nodded, sighing quietly. “A’ready miss your smell. I’m pissed they did it in front’a the kids, too. Didn’t need to see that.”

“I know. I can’t believe they put you in with your brother.”

“No place else ’til they fix up ’nother cell for me. It ain’t so bad. He takes his meds. He’s a lot diff’r’nt from when… y’know.”

“Charles hired a legal team for you. We’ll get you out, I promise.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Jean observed. “It’s okay, we’re all making sure nothing happens to you in here. The staff all know you’re innocent and if they even think about thinking about sending you off for experiments they’ll get to learn from me personally how it feels to be set on fire.”

At least that got her a little smirk from him. His eyes were so tired already; Jean knew that look. It was the one he wore when he was having deja vu. He’d been in jail before and was remembering the same feeling, which made her heart clench.

“My… pre-trial thing’s tomorrow. Would’a been sooner except for some kinda special somethin’-or-other ’cause’a my powers. They gotta make sure I ain’t gonna be dangerous, I guess. Would’a behaved myself anyhow.”

“I know, baby. It’ll be okay.”

“I a’ready miss holdin’ you,” Logan admitted quietly, shifting uncomfortably where he’d settled on the floor of the cell. “Just in here by myself all day with nobody but Victor. He don’t got nothin’ to talk ’bout most days.”

Jean nodded, blinking back tears and wondering suddenly if there was anything more depressing than seeing an innocent man behind bars. And she’d helped put him in there, even.

“Stop it,” Logan growled suddenly, looking up from under his thick eyebrows. “You’re projectin’, for one, an’ ’sides that you didn’t do nothin’ to get me in here. I did that all on my own, darlin’.”

“I just didn’t want them to start hitting you,” Jean explained once she could talk without her voice shaking.

“I know. Don’t blame you none.”

There was silence for a moment as Jean tried to think of a less guilt-ridden topic. “I wish they didn’t cut your hair like that.”

“Parasites,” Logan shrugged, clearly indifferent.

“I know, but… this is kind of stupid, compared with everything else, but I really like how your hair feels. I don’t want to see you bald like this. It’s like… you don’t count as human anymore, as far as the system says. So they can shave you and scrub you down because you’re ‘just’ a prisoner.”

Her husband offered a bitter grimace in response. “Yeah, ’cause we all know I sure as hell weren’t seen less’n human before now.” Logan shook his head. “Really hate bein’ stuck in one spot like this, though. Gets to me. Remember… long time ago, just sittin’ in this hole in the mud. Rats all ’round our feet an’ water, guys’ skin would get clammy an’ start dyin’. But we couldn’a climbed up, too dangerous or somethin’. I think… maybe that was a war. Don’t know which one. Just remember that, sittin’ in the mut with the rats. Sometimes I’d eat them, too, just ’cause it was somethin’ warm.”

“Have you been remembering things?” Jean wondered, trying to take his mind off the fact he was locked up for even a few minutes.

Logan frowned in thought: “Most’a it’s what I see in dreams. Like, um, Omaha Beach. Lost my whole fuckin’ squad to a machine gun nest. See their faces sometimes, too, but… don’t remember their names.” His expression saddened at that. “I carried the last one alive to the medic… kid got an infection an’ ended up sent home in a box. They were good guys. I uh… sent a letter home with him, too. Knew his family’d get mailed one anyway, sayin’ he’d bit it, but I wrote one, too. Just to tell his mother he did what he could. That I was his squad leader an’ I was proud’a him.”

“That was kind of you,” Jean nodded.

“Maybe,” Logan shrugged. “Don’t change how he died a horrible death. Not quick enough that it wouldn’t hurt, but fast enough for him to know it was happenin’. Slow deaths… they should be slow. So slow you barely realize the changes’re happenin’ to you, where you can forget a little while. An’ quick deaths should be so quick you don’t even feel it happen. Anythin’ else just ain’t okay for nobody involved.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The war Logan's remembering with the rats and the mud is WWI. He got a little glimpse back into the horrors of trench warfare and the despicable living conditions they had to put up with.


	7. The Smell Of Sickness

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Brian muttered, keeping his eyes glued to the red circle and not looking at Mr. Summers.

“Are you sure? Your focus keeps breaking. Your record is twenty-eight minutes, you know. Today I haven’t seen you make it past three.” The veteran teacher paused. “Is it about Victor?”

“No.”

“...is it about Logan?”

Brian shrugged, still struggling to keep his eyes fixed to the red circle.

“His trial is in five weeks, Brian. That’s all. He’ll be found innocent and come back home before summer vacation is even half over.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Sure, but that don’t got anything to do with how crimes work,” Brian grumbled, finally turning to face the X-Man. “People don’t like us. Uncle Jimmy said last week when we visited him that he’ll be surprised if he’s found innocent.”

Mr. Summers sighed, long and quiet.

“He is innocent. If the court isn’t able to see that, we’ll do everything in our power to appeal and get him out, Brian. I promise.”

“Lotta good it’ll prob’ly do him…”

“Why do you say that?”

“Uncle Jimmy is really sick, Mr. Summers. Before he got locked up I could smell it… now you can see it on him. He’s all pale and shaky and thin, I don’t think he’s getting enough sleep even though my dad says that’s really all he does. I’ve seen his nose just start bleeding a couple’a times, too, for no reason. Something’s really wrong with him.”

* * *

 

“Jimmy.”

“Grmph. Go ’way, Victor.”

Logan rolled onto his side to face the wall, but his brother turned him back again by his shoulder. “Jimmy. Jimmy, get up!” Why was he hissing? Couldn’t he talk normally? “Somethin’ happened, you gotta get your ass up!”

“Piss off,” Logan grumbled, yawning. He was too tired to deal with anything right now. “Tryn’a sleep over here.”

“There’s been a power cut, I can get you out, but you gotta help me!”

That got his attention: “You serious?”

Victor nodded, barely visible in the darkness. There were no windows and no lights, so Logan could only detect his environment accurately through sound and scent. Now that he was roused, he noticed the faint noises from deeper within Block C of guards yelling and weapons going off.

“C’mon, everythin’s all confused an’ shit right now. This’s our best shot.”

By dislocating almost every bone in his hands, Logan was able to pry the adamantium cylinders off with help from his brother. The damn things still took some skin with them, though, and his wrists were oozing blood as a result. That was the least of their problems, though, because then he had to extend a claw so that they could pry open the ventilation grate. Adamantium wouldn’t break, but even at less than his best Logan’s weight still bent the screws out of shape far enough that he could use the tip of the claw to loosen them. Victor hoisted him into the chute, then climbed in after him.

The pair of ferals were only able to navigate by smell, following the air stream that came from the outside. Logan’s palms smeared blood over the inside of the tube as he pulled himself through it - the thing was so narrow he could barely fit, which made him wonder how his brother managed being the larger of them.

After a while, probably twenty minutes or so, Logan was still bleeding and his muscles were too tired to keep moving at the pace they’d started with. Truthfully, he’d started getting sore almost immediately, but they were jammed in now with no way except forward that they could move. He gulped air as silently as he knew how, but it didn’t seem to be helping. He knew why he was this way, too, and holding still for a few minutes wouldn’t fix it. He needed to push to the very end.

“C’mon, Jimmy,” Victor whispered behind him, so softly nobody without enhanced senses would’ve detected the words. “Almost there. Almost out.”

Logan struggled forward again for a few more minutes, then stopped and panted. Crawl, stop. Crawl, stop. They needed to go faster than that, though. Worse still, he was stopping more often and for longer periods each time. He could smell the industrial air filters, nearly within clawing distance, but all his strength seemed to be dripping out through the scrapes on his wrists. His arms and shoulders just wouldn’t move him.

“Jimmy, let’s go!”

“Can’t…” Logan wheezed, still trying to keep his sawing breaths quiet and undetectable. “Too tired…”

“Move your ass! Gonna be stuck here ’til you do!”

“Victor… just… just lemme…”

“For fuck’s sake!”

There was a sudden, loud screeching behind him. Bone talons ripping through the thin steel of the pipe. And two seconds after that they both crashed down through the ceiling and onto a concrete floor. Logan felt even more abrasions appear on impact, to which he groaned, though he made no move to right himself or even look to see where they were. He could feel his brother picking him up in a fireman’s carry and start running, at least, which meant he could just close his eyes and wait for them to be out.

If only it were that simple.

Logan’s nose was bleeding again, smearing dark stains into the shoulder of Victor’s jumpsuit, when they jolted to a stop.

“You gotta cut through the door,” his brother insisted. “Guard’s office has windows, I seen it.”

He found himself carefully set onto his feet and held up while he regained his balance. The door was industrial plate steel, but adamantium blades would still tear through it like tissue paper. Logan flicked out his claws and neatly separated the door from the frame by slashing the hinges and the latch.

“You doin’ better yet?”

“Little,” he ceded, shrugging as he stumbled after Victor on shaking legs.

In the guard office, Logan paused briefly to look at the security monitors and see if they were being followed, but was rudely reminded by the black screens that there was no power. Listening instead, he was satisfied that none of the guards were near enough to stop them as his brother scrabbled at the closest window. He tried opening it, then punching, kicking, eventually throwing a chair. The reinforced glass didn’t budge no matter what he did, so in the end Logan ended up removing it with his claws as he had the door.

Neither of them bothered looking as they threw themselves out into the night, hitting the ground after what must’ve been three or four stories. Logan tried to get back up, but his muscles were just too exhausted and combined with his pain from the fall he couldn’t keep his feet.

“Here… hold ’round my neck,” Victor offered, getting on all fours.

Logan clung like that as his brother started leaping along the ground, eating distance at an incredible pace. Even not knowing exactly where they were, they both had excellent polar directional skills and would only have to reach some sort of civilization in order to find their way back to New York.

* * *

 

When Jean woke up that morning and went down for breakfast, the whole mansion was in an uproar. The staff and senior X-Men were all talking about SHIELD agents possibly coming to interrogate them, how could this have happened at The Vault, what _had_ really happened there if anyone knew, how big of a threat would this probably be.

“What’s going on?” Jean immediately questioned once she ran into Mystique.

“The most they’ve been able to reliably put together so far is that a group of villains launched a coordinated attack on The Vault last night in order to spring one of their cohorts. The entire facility lost power, at least half the guards were killed or injured, and almost a fifth of the prisoners managed to escape. Wolverine and Sabertooth are both missing, so presumably they got out, too. We haven’t been able to locate them because Charles is too busy being _hounded_ over the phone by SHIELD as we speak.”

Jean nodded.

“Alright. Thanks. Do we know if they’re on their way here?”

“That’s our best guess,” the blue mutant affirmed. “Cyclops and Gambit are flying along that route in a search grid. They’ve been out since we were informed, so we’re just waiting to hear something either way.”

Shortly after that, the X-Men (junior team included) gathered to discuss the issue. In Scott’s absence Logan should’ve been in charge since he was the other field team leader, but obviously that wasn’t possible, so Hank took the head of the table.

“We still haven’t received a complete report on the damage from SHIELD, so we’re not sure what we’re dealing with. Scott contacted me recently and has given the following orders. Alpha team is on security detail for the campus, especially the perimeter of the property until the threat level has been assessed. Bravo team must stay on combat alert until further notice in case we get called to help with damage control, and in Logan’s absence Bobby will be acting commander. Junior team, you are excused from classes for the day. Alex, Quentin, Maria, Sam, you’ll reinforce alpha team. Brian, Rahne, Spencer and Laura will reinforce bravo team. Scott will be in contact with us so alpha team doesn’t need an acting commander for the time being unless the situation changes. Dr. Grey and I will remain in the infirmary so that we can prepare for any possible injuries. Emma, please notify the students which classes have been cancelled for today. Dismissed, everyone.”

They all exited the room and, with the exception of Jean and Hank, went to suit up. Really, she knew, it was a good thing that she wasn’t going to be in the thick of things if something came up. Normally she was incredibly effective during field ops, but knowing that Logan had vanished from prison and hadn’t been found yet made her anxious.

A few weeks back she’d suddenly noticed that his health had been declining, and at the time had put it down to lack of sunlight and contact with his family, but he’d steadily gotten visibly sicker with each successive visit. Something was wrong with her husband and she wasn’t allowed to check him for it.

“Do you think he’s headed our way?” she couldn’t help asking as they began setting up trauma kits and trays for minor injuries.

“I’ll be quite surprised if Scott doesn’t find him even before he reaches us,” her friend smiled, nodding. “I think it’s likely that Victor will be accompanying him as well, but we have the resources to care for him. He won’t cause us trouble.”

“Well, Brian will be happy about that if it happens,” Jean ceded. That didn’t mean she was enthusiastic about the idea; mentally stable or no, Victor had still attacked her.

“Laura will have more than enough sense to stay out of his way, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Hank offered as he stacked packets of sterile gauze on the side-tables. “And it’s highly improbable he’ll try anything.”

“I’m not worried about Laura,” she countered. “If anything, Creed’s the one who should be scared of _her._ I just can’t help feeling…”

“Uneasy?”

“Yes.”

“That’s quite normal, of course. I completely understand.”

“I know. Thank you.”

They worked in silence after that, preparing their equipment and tools for a potential crisis. There were enough patient beds for all of bravo team and some to spare otherwise, but Jean still hoped they wouldn’t be needed. Ultimately that was a vain wish and she knew it; someone almost always got hurt whenever they had to help contain one of SHIELD’s or the Avengers’ massive failures as an organization. She’d seen more than a few already.

Just after lunch was when the call came in, which Hank answered.

From his tone and context clues, Jean could immediately tell that someone was coming in hurt, but oddly enough no combat had taken place. Perhaps there had been some sort of accident…

“That was Scott,” Hank informed her grimly after he’d replaced the phone receiver on his desk. “Logan and Victor have both been collected and are on their way right now. Apparently Logan was rescued unconscious and bleeding.”

Her breath caught in her throat. His healing factor wasn’t what it used to be, she knew, but her husband was still a tough son of a bitch when he needed to be. Any wound that could incapacitate him would be critical.

Sure enough, when the jet was landed in the hangar under the basketball court maybe fifteen minutes later, Logan was carried in by Victor. They were both in dirty blood-smeared prison jumpsuits and barefoot. All the blood seemed to be Logan’s, though, which was alarming. From the patterns of the stains Jean guessed that he’d bled onto Victor while being carried, and at some point had dripped onto the ground and then dragged himself through it because he’d needed to crawl.

“What happened?” Jean demanded as Logan was settled on an exam bed and immediately set upon by her and Hank both.

“Dunno,” Victor shrugged, his eyes and tone worried. He was completely unlike the man she’d seen when last he’d been at the mansion. “Could smell him gettin’ sicker for months now, sometimes just started bleedin’ outta nowhere. All’a them scrapes, though, are from freein’ his hands. He weren’t strong enough to get out on his own, neither. Had to help him some.”

Jean wiped the smudges of blood from under his nose while Hank started an IV, then began bandaging her husband’s wrists and hands. He must’ve needed to use his claws at some point, too, because the gashes between his knuckles had inexplicably failed to heal already. They were caked over and scabbed, too, so this had been a while ago.

That was when she glanced up and happened to see what was in the fluid line Hank was hooking up to Logan’s left arm, and her heart almost stopped beating right then: “Why are you giving him cyclophosphamide?”

“Because clearly he hasn’t been given any since he was incarcerated,” Hank answered quietly, not looking at her. “He didn’t want me to tell you because he thought he could get better before you knew about it.”

“What?” she choked out, trying to breathe and mostly failing.

“Logan has chronic lymphocytic leukemia. And… like I said, he didn’t want me to tell you. He knew you’d be worried.”


	8. Categorization Of Three And Four

Jean sat for several hours after that, resting her elbows on the side of her husband’s patient bed or holding his hand or stroking his arm or just fidgeting. Every so often tears would roll down for a few minutes at a time - how had she overlooked this? She was a trained medical professional and hadn’t even noticed Logan getting sick until long after he’d been detained.

There had been symptoms galore, now that she stopped and thought back. Brian and Laura both insisting he smelled sick. Seeming more tired than usual after teaching his combat lessons to students. Unexplained bruising on his body that she saw once in awhile during sex or while he was changing his clothes. The constant ear infection he’d had for more than two months while he’d been in prison.

Apparently right around the time Logan had started to smell off to the kids, his healing factor must’ve ticked down another notch because the density of heavy metal poisoning had increased and begun counteracting the chemo, which was when Hank had started him on the cyclophosphamide. But going without treatment for almost six months meant that the greater adamantium toxicity had been stunting his healing factor further and further, which became a cycle that fed into itself and only Logan’s hard-headed stubbornness had enabled him to escape The Vault even with Victor doing most of the work for him. A normal man would be bed-ridden by now.

There were certainly options for leukemia treatment, Jean knew. Laura and probably Victor could donate bone marrow for a transplant, which would be no great hardship on them because their healing factors were still working. The problem arose that the adamantium couldn’t be removed from Logan’s bones, so each new batch of marrow would start taking damage as soon as it grafted and he’d need to be re-transplanted every few months or so. Rogue had been forced to absorb Magneto’s powers at one point and still had a sliver of them that she maintained, but it was nowhere near powerful enough to strip the toxic alloy from his bones without risking massive musculoskeletal trauma. So for the time being it looked like they’d continue with the chemo treatments, even though it seemed those were becoming less and less effective.

Jean was waiting for Logan to wake back up again for the moment before discussing any of this with Hank. In reality, chemotherapy was such a horrific and painful long-term treatment option for cancer patients that in her opinion it bordered on unnecessary torture. Cytotoxins were pumped directly into the body and simply destroyed any type of rapidly-regenerating tissue, as well as making the patient a hazard to those around them since their fluids would become contact toxins as a result. In an organism already weakened by cancer, chemo could potentially be lethal if managed improperly, meaning that sometimes the cure was quite literally worse than the disease. Especially if loved ones of the person in question were forced to watch them suffer this horrible regimen of poison infusions only for them to succumb anyway.

Jean didn’t think she wanted that for Logan, and she knew he certainly wouldn’t be interested in it either. But to stop chemo entirely, as well as reject potential bone marrow transplants, would be to willingly give up her husband’s life, and she didn’t know if she could do that, either. So, really, Jean just needed Logan to wake up soon and make his case either way. Ultimately the decision was on him, after all.

“Mom?”

So lost in thought, Jean was startled at Laura’s appearance in the infirmary. She tried to summon a reassuring smile but just couldn’t; her daughter would know if she was lying, anyway.

“Hey.” Jean wiped her eyes with her fingers for the hundred-thousandth time. “Aren’t you still on combat alert?”

“Iceman said I could be relieved because Dad is sick.” Laura started to come forward, still in her dark blue and silver armored uniform, but then recoiled. “He smells terminal.” The girl’s hazel eyes widened. “Mom, is he terminal?”

“He might not be,” Jean choked out. It was the best she could offer at the moment. “We just need to wait for him to wake up so we can talk to him about it, that’s all.”

“Mom…?” Laura tried to ask, but cut herself off as her face crumpled and she burst into tears.

That was really the only thing that could’ve made this situation hurt more, because in all the time since she’d been discovered and rescued Laura had _never_ cried at anything. Jean was on her feet before she could even finish processing this, finding her arms around her daughter as Laura whimpered damply into her neck. There was nothing she could say, either, because if there were no words that could comfort her, then how could she give them to someone else?

* * *

 

Logan woke up the following morning just before noon. Jean, Laura and Brian were all huddled to one side of his bed. Victor was sitting a few feet back on the other, repeatedly extending and retracting his yellowish talons with a pensive look on his face. The two kids were both fidgeting as well, playing with their dog-tags or their clothes or occasionally taking a break to get into an argument, though this time it had escalated into a fistfight between the pair.

“Knock it off over there,” Logan snarled groggily as Jean was about to rebuke them.

Laura immediately shoved Brian backwards into an empty patient bed so that she could go to her father’s, grab him by the prison uniform he was still wearing, and shake him into full wakefulness.

“You knew you were sick!” Laura screamed, her ears and clenched fists red. “You knew you were sick but you told us you weren’t! _You lied to us! Stop being sick!_ ”

“Uh…” Logan started to reply, but was shocked into silence as Laura collapsed onto his chest and buried her face in it, sobbing hard. His arms hesitantly slid around her and his tired hazel eyes found Jean. “Hank told you, then?”

“He shouldn’t have had to,” Jean rebuked, wishing her voice wasn’t so shaky. But she wasn’t angry with Logan - rather she was inexplicably terrified. She didn’t know how this would play out or how long it had been going on. “Logan… you… why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you let me help?”

“Uncle Jimmy, are you going to die?” Brian whispered, interrupting. “You smell like you’re going to die.”

Logan sighed and closed his eyes again. “Don’t know yet,” he answered, rubbing Laura’s back through her shirt. She had quieted some. “Hafta talk to Hank before I know anythin’.”

“Talk to me about what?” Hank questioned, pacing over to them from where he’d been sitting at his desk on his laptop. “I’m glad to see you awake, incidentally.”

“Can’t believe you fuckin’ told them,” Logan growled instead of answering. “Told you not to.”

“I had no choice, and you knew they would find out eventually. Now, I ask again, talk to me about what?”

“Me dyin’.”

“Well, you obviously haven’t been receiving your treatments during your incarceration, so that may be difficult to answer.”

“Skip the bullshit, furball. I know you know what’s goin’ on.”

“I… would you prefer to have this conversation without Brian and Laura present?”

“They’re gonna know everythin’ you tell me, so just spit it out for fuck’s sake.”

Hank sighed heavily.

“After your blood panel last night, and the exam I conducted before you regained consciousness this morning, you’re at extremely high risk. There are a few things I’ve been keeping an eye on before the incident last December. You have a high lymphocyte count, and your lymph nodes are slightly enlarged. That hasn’t changed since then. Here’s what has changed. Your spleen and liver both seem to be somewhat enlarged, you’re anemic, and your platelet count is extremely low, which is why you’ve been experiencing random uncontrolled bleeding. Your lack of energy is caused by the anemia, since there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry the amount of oxygen you need to feel healthy. Your swollen liver is pressing in on your stomach, which is why you haven’t been hungry according to what Victor has told me. Now, there is a detail here that makes the difference. Stage three leukemia is categorized differently than stage four by the platelet count, and I’ve unfortunately concluded that between these symptoms and the extensive damage to your skeleton that… you’re currently at stage four.”

“Great. Now in actual words would be nice.”

“Stage four is the most severe, with the lowest rate of expected survivability. We can continue chemotherapy, but the adamantium concentration in your blood may further counteract the drugs as it increases. We could also potentially perform bone marrow transplants, which would help temporarily. The problem arises that the adamantium grafts will continue to damage any new marrow you receive, and we would have to continuously re-transplant you for the rest of your life until ultimately something else… ended things. So, we can continue chemo, give you a series of marrow transplants, possibly some combination of the two. Or… if you prefer, we… could stop treatment altogether. It’s up to you which of these options seems most ideal.”

Logan shook his head at Hank, eyebrows drawing together.

“Everythin’ you just said an’ you still gotta ask? You a’ready know which one I’m gonna pick.”

“Jimmy-”

“Shut up, Victor.”

“You’re gonna just let yourself die?”

“I said shut up.”

Victor’s steel-colored eyes suddenly darted to Jean: “You gonna just let him do this to himself? Can’t you talk him outta it?”

Jean just stared at her brother-in-law (ugh, that thought still made her cringe) for a long moment, then looked at Logan and found herself shaking her head. Horrible and upsetting as this was, she understood, and she wouldn’t even think about making him.

“I’m not going to, and I don’t even want to try.”

Laura was still clinging to her father as though she could physically crush the sickness from him, and even Brian had silent tears running down his face now. Victor was staring at her in disbelief, but Jean forced herself not to crack. She had to be strong right now, for her kids, for her husband who’d just sentenced himself to untimely death. Nothing else was important at this point except that they needed her to take care of them.

Especially Logan. Logan would need lots of care, now.

* * *

 

That afternoon Jean sat in silence beside her husband as Hank stood in front of both teams of X-Men and explained. They all seemed to be numbed with shock, even Scott and Emma, who were probably Logan’s least biggest fans in the school. Logan, on the other hand, was leaning heavily on her and struggling to stay awake. He had stumbled up to their bedroom after lunch and forced himself to change into his sweats and a flannel, but just turning his head to look at someone seemed to be draining for him right now.

“...so, in short, we um… at the very least we will need to find a new instructor for the kids’ combat lessons,” Hank concluded, his eyes sad and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “I would recommend Victor, but even with his medications and therapy I don’t know if we’d feel safe allowing him near the students. And of course, SHIELD will likely wish to detain him again. I’ll advocate heavily for Logan to be officially placed in our custody. With his health… in this state, he poses no threat to anyone.”

Jean lovingly stroked Logan’s back with her hand at that comment, feeling him drift off against her despite his efforts not to. She wasn’t completely sure that he had CLL and not some other variation of leukemia, but the adamantium was such a demanding complication that it couldn’t have been easy for Hank to make any kind of diagnosis. In addition, her primary specialty was in genetics and secondary in pediatrics, so this was outside her scope, but that didn’t stop her from being worried by how close to the end Logan suddenly seemed now that she was back in close contact with him.

 _*Logan, wake up,*_ she gently nudged with her mind. She could feel him claw his way back to full consciousness, but it was a long moment before he opened his eyes again. Just in time to be hassled by Scott.

“Just so I’m clear on this, Logan, you’re _choosing_ to let this happen?”

“Yup.”

“But… why? What about your family? What about your job and the team?”

“Piss off, Scooter.”

Scott groaned. “Can you please just humor me this once?”

“Chemo ain’t workin’ an’ my bones hurt all the fuckin’ time, just want it to stop an’ it ain’t like there’s much to be done ’bout this by now, anyway.”

“Wonderful,” Scott grumbled. “Charles is stepping back from administrative duties because of his age, and now I’m losing not only one of my staff but the leader of bravo team at the same time. The difficulties are just going to keep piling up, aren’t they?”

“Stop it,” Jean ordered him. “Which part of any of that is Logan’s fault?”

“None. It’s just frustrating-”

“Save your bitchin’ an’ moanin’ for someone who gives a shit, Slim,” Logan broke in, his words growled but his voice worn out. Then he made an uncomfortable grimace and hauled himself to his feet, nearly pitching onto his face. “Ughn… be right back, I gotta go puke again…”

Which left Jean at the table with them, silently cursing the chemo Hank had given him before he’d woken up. In light of Logan’s decision, all the cytotoxins had accomplished was making him nauseous, achy and generally miserable. And of course Scott had to _still_ make things worse by unknowingly repeating Victor’s earlier sentiment.

“Jean, are you just going to let him go through with this? He has options but just won’t take them, can’t you talk him out of letting himself go like this?”

“Why should I?” she replied, shaking her head. “If his mind’s made up it’s made up, there’s nothing I can do. And quite frankly I don’t want to. Chemotherapy is a horrible process and I won’t force him to suffer pointlessly.”

It was almost miraculous how she was able to force back the tears as she said it, so that nobody knew they were even there.


	9. Blood Brothers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, what a surprise, this chapter is short. -_-

Brian sniffed, detecting the approaching mutant over the scents of grass and the half-dozen students who’d been in this spot a few hours prior. Almost identical to his own, though, so he knew who it was. He didn’t glance over until Victor actually sat on the ground beside him, looking glum.

“When are they giving you new clothes?” Brian asked, focusing on the trees again.

“When they know if I’m goin’ back to The Vault or not.” Victor sighed quietly through his nose. “I ain’t holdin’ my breath.”

“They should be nice and let you stay,” Brian mumbled. “At least for Uncle Jimmy, right? So you can be with your brother when… you know.”

“You gonna be okay? He’s been here for you lot more’n I have.”

“I dunno,” he shrugged, looking at his hands as he pulled out clumps of grass. “Do I got a choice not to? I know this’s fucking Laura up something good, so… I mean, somebody’s gotta help her get through it. My aunt probably won’t be able to, though. She’s okay right now, but I bet she’s gonna totally crack from the pressure.”

“Good to know you’re bein’ a better brother’n I ever was,” Victor commented, smiling without humor.

“Laura’s my cousin.”

“Only by blood. I ain’t been here. They been here for you, so you gotta sister’n a mom an’ a dad. I’mma footnote. But that’s okay. Kinda don’t deserve to be more’n a footnote, kid. You gotta good dad.”

“Yeah,” Brian whispered, nodding. He felt like he was deflating emotionally right then. “Why do I gotta lose him now? I kinda thought he’d always be here. He even told me once last year that he wouldn’t be, but I still thought…”

Tears blurred his vision and he turned, two pairs of steel-colored eyes meeting. Victor reached out to collect him in an embrace.

“Y’know, I always thought the same thing. Jimmy’s always been here. Figured he’d always be ’round like me.”

Brian couldn’t answer. He was too busy wiping his face off into Victor’s shirt, knowing he could hide the tears there where they wouldn’t hurt Laura of Aunt Jean or anyone else.

* * *

 

Logan slumped heavily against Jean, struggling to hold his head up and not drift off. With all his effort going into that, he couldn’t keep track of what Hank was trying to tell him.

“Hey, sit up,” his wife whispered to him, rubbing his back and helping him straighten his spine a little.

“Mph,” Logan grunted, forcing his eyes back into focus on his friend. “Sorry, furball. Can you say that all again?”

Hank nodded patiently, even though this was probably the fifth or sixth time explaining things by now.

“Your children are very shaken. I understand you have no interest in further pursuing chemotherapy treatments… Logan, I’m not on the floor.” He jerked his head up and again. “It may help your family cope if you agree to a bone marrow transplant. This will significantly improve your quality of life for some period of time and will give your loved ones time to have closure. I’m not proposing an ongoing series of grafts, and Logan, I’m still not on the floor. Now. This can give up to several years for most leukemia patients. In your case, I wouldn’t bet on longer than six or eight months due to the adamantium. But you will be more comfortable for a time.”

“Uh…” Logan frowned, turning his sleepy eyes to Jean at his left. “Your thoughts, darlin’?”

“It was my idea,” Jean admitted.

“Well… sure. Whatever. So what’s gonna happen for this transplant?”

“For the recipient, it is not a surgical procedure. In fact, to the untrained observer it is indistinguishable from a blood transfusion-”

“Hank? He probably wants to have a nap soon,” Jeannie broke in, motioning with her hand for him to speed it along.

“Yes. The marrow is removed from the donor through a large syringe, placed in a bag, and administered intravenously. The best candidates will be your brother or your daughter.”

“You’re not takin’ nothin’ from Laura,” Logan snarled, instantly wide awake again. “She grew up in a lab, I ain’t lettin’ you start stickin’ her on my account. Stab needles into Victor if you gotta, but not her.”

“I understand,” Hank nodded calmly. “There will be a brief test to determine donor compatibility. Even if Victor isn’t a match and we’re unable to proceed with the transplant, we will still take very good care of you. You’re beginning to enter what we refer to in medicine as ‘hospice care.’ We will make no effort beyond this potential transplant to combat your illness directly, but we’ll certainly do our best to control your symptoms to keep you as comfortable as possible.”

“A’right. What’s that actually mean?”

“We’ll monitor your white cell count, and once it reaches a certain point we’ll take care to keep your environment aseptic so that you won’t contract any secondary infections. Eventually your anemia will progress to the point where you won’t be getting enough oxygen, so we’ll administer that to you. Eventually it won’t be enough, but you won’t be gasping for air or feel yourself suffocating. It’s actually… well, it’s actually quite peaceful. You’ll be drowsy most of the time like you are now, and finally you’ll fall asleep and simply not wake up again. I’ll manage your pain medications so that the chronic aching in your skeleton eases, and if I may say so, personally I think this is a most comfortable option. You’ve certainly earned a calm and peaceful end like this. Your family will be with you and it won’t hurt if we can help it.”

Logan mulled that over for a long moment, then finally nodded. “Yeah. I’mma be okay with that, too.”

While Hank left briefly to collect Victor, Logan climbed onto one of the patient beds and settled against the pillow, just taking in Jean’s warm and soothing scent next to him. She was always next to him in some way, which was comforting. He’d missed it so much over the long months he’d been locked up.

“You gonna be takin’ care’a me, baby?” Logan smiled, looking drowsily up at her.

“Of course,” she nodded, stroking her fingers lightly along the side of his face. “But Hank will do most of the medical procedures. He thinks it’ll be better that way so that I’ll be less burdened.”

“I don’t wanna make your life hard, darlin’. You should still… do your normal stuff.”

“It’s almost summer vacation, baby. I won’t be working all that much anyway.”

When Hank reappeared in the infirmary, not only did he have Victor in tow, but Laura and Brian as well. Logan could smell that his nephew had shed some tears earlier, though he wasn’t at the moment. His daughter, on the other hand, couldn’t even be in the same room as him these last few days without crying. It hurt more than he wanted to admit - he hated being the thing making Laura suffer.

“Hey kid, c’mere,” Logan offered, reaching one arm in Laura’s direction. When she obeyed, he wrapped it around her, kissed her forehead, and let her snuggle up to his side on the patient bed like a scared puppy. “It’s okay. You’re okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

Hank took blood samples from him and his brother to test them, at which point Victor was sent away again. Laura still clung to him, while Jean remained standing at his right and Brian settled in one of the nearby plastic chairs. He hadn’t been afraid of anything to begin with, but now that things had been explained to him he still found himself feeling relaxed about it. Dying for him would be quiet and uneventful, just like this with his family around while he fell asleep in their arms with their scents in his nose. He was certainly okay with this arrangement.


	10. Care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So two things. First, I'm really getting into the medical terminology and procedures and stuff... any inaccuracies are due to the fact that while I've tried to do my homework on this disease and its complications and everything, I'm not actually a medical professional and the internet may have lied to me. Plus Logan's metal skeleton screws things up and blah-blah-blah. Second, this chapter is IMO pretty soul-crushing. You've been warned.

_I hate the way the room smells._

Jean nodded sympathetically, squeezing his hand a little in hers. They were inside his mind right now, keeping him away from the real world and all its pains. She’d made it look and feel like the woods around the school, the place where he was most comfortable. The infirmary was already seeming very far away from them.

_*I know, but we have to keep the room sterile during the procedure. It’ll help keep you from getting an infection.*_

They sat down under one of the trees. Logan was leaning into her warmth even though it wasn’t cold in his mind or in real life; it was the beginning of June and this week was the last one before school ended until September.

_I’m worried ’bout Laura,_ Logan confessed suddenly. _This whole thing’s been real hard on her, almost think_ she’s _the one dyin’ way she been actin’ lately._

_*You’re her dad and she loves you,*_ Jean pointed out. _*And she still has some issues after growing up in a lab. But it shouldn’t stay this hard for her. Eventually she’ll start to cope.*_

_Don’t want her to hafta cope, I want her to be okay. Want all three’a you to be okay._

They wrapped their arms around each other. Jean felt him shivering a little in the real world and in his mind she began stroking his back.

_*You don’t need to worry about it, baby. I’m taking care of things for you.*_

_I’m just… I been havin’ a real bad day today,_ Logan whimpered. _I ain’t takin’ back my choice ’bout this, but… wish there was a better one. I can suffer like this or just suffer a diff’r’nt way which’ll drag out the hurt. But now I’mma be leavin’ Brian to Victor, an’ I’m fuckin’ Laura up with this choice, an’ you’re… I just… I fuckin’ hate that I’m doin’ this to everybody._

_*It’s not your fault,*_ Jean soothed, projecting warmth and comfort at him as she felt him crying. _*This was never your fault. You’re not doing this to us, I promise. Brian will be fine, you’ve raised him to be smart and he won’t fall into the same traps as Victor did. Laura will cope like I said, it won’t always be this painful for her or for you. I’m taking care of things. I’ll take care of you, just like I always have.*_

_But who’s gonna take care’a_ you, _darlin’?_ Logan whispered.

Jean didn’t have an answer for that one.

* * *

 

After a little bit, they slipped back into the real world. Logan was on his back in bed, confined to the isolation cell of the infirmary and trying to ignore the stink of industrial-grade disinfectants. They’d made him wear a patient gown, but he was allowed to keep his sweats, which was nice because he was feeling unusually cold. Jeannie was here with him, of course, but she’d had to dress up in those surgical clothes that brought back just as many unpleasant memories as the smell of the chemicals. She even had to wear one of those masks, which bothered him the most. She was so pretty and he couldn’t see most of her face.

“How do you feel right now?” Jean asked, lightly brushing down his hair.

“Cold,” Logan wheezed, sucking in a breath. “Head hurts a little, an’ my chest does, too. My mouth tastes funny. I feel… dunno how else to say it, but I feel _gross._ Like I been poisoned. My bones still hurt, darlin’. Thought Hank was gonna fix that…”

“Your symptoms are normal,” Jean assured him. “It’ll pass soon. Here, sit up a little.” She eased another pillow under his neck, which along with the one he’d started out lying on as well as those under his arms and legs made number six. His whole body ached from the disease inside his skeleton, the toxic alloy wrapped around each bone, and nothing was soft enough for him right now. “Once the procedure is over Hank’s going to give you a blood transfusion and then you can have some more painkillers.”

“Okay,” Logan agreed, closing his eyes for a minute as his wife retrieved a third blanket from the warmer and tucked it around him. The heat relaxed him some, made him less huddled against the cold. It wasn’t cold in here at all, and he knew it, but that hadn’t stopped him from feeling like it was somehow. Besides his head, only his left arm stayed uncovered - that was the one with the huge venous catheter hanging out of it at the moment. “Y’know, way the furball described this, didn’t think it’d be this awful.”

“Marrow transplants can be rough on patients,” Jeannie nodded. “Well… actually, _all_ cancer treatments are rough on patients. That’s why I don’t understand how everyone thinks I should force you to keep doing chemo.”

Logan tried to come up with a less depressing topic. “Hey… when Hank lets me have real food again, I’mma eat a whole steak.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Jean scolded, but he heard the smile in her words despite the surgical mask. “We’re going to ease you back onto solid food so that you don’t upset your stomach.”

“Dammit, I wanna have a big steak,” he argued. “An’ beer to go with it. Gravy an’ fries, too.”

“We’ll see,” she replied, her tone indicating that no such thing would be allowed but her eyes still looking on him with amusement and love. “Besides, I think Laura ate all your steaks anyway and Ororo’s not picking up the food order until tomorrow.”

“I swear I’mma thrash that kid one’a these days.”

“You keep saying that, but you haven’t yet,” Jeannie chuckled, running the back of her index finger lightly across his cheek. She idly brushed down his hair; it was getting long and fluffy again. That gave him an idea, which made her frown around the surgical mask. “What is it?”

“Just thought’a somethin’...” Logan muttered, grimacing with pain as he extended one claw a couple of inches from his right hand. With his left he grabbed a tuft on the side of his head and deftly sliced it free, then pressed it into his wife’s palm as the blade retracted back into his knuckle. “Know you like my fur, now you got some to hang onto.”

“Logan…” Jean looked down at where he’d folded her hand around the soft tuft, then to the blood leaking from the gash between his fingers. “Try not to use your claws, okay? You don’t heal anymore and the amount of bacteria your claws pull back in with them from the environment-”

“Shhh,” he whispered, reaching up to rest his palm on the side of her face. “Don’t matter none. Been in pain my whole life, darlin’. Little more won’t make no diff’r’nce now. I’mma give the kids my tags, but I only got two’a them, so… I know you like feelin’ my hair. It’s okay, like yours, too.”

Jean was quiet for a long moment, and he could smell the tears trying to come to her eyes even though she held them back. Finally she shook her head at the wound in his right fist.

“Here, let me take care of that.” Antibiotic ointment and sterile gauze dressings were applied by her skilled, gentle touch. Logan winced slightly as she settled his lower arm on the pillow and slipped the blanket over it. “Are you okay?”

“My joints are kinda stiff right now, that’s all,” he admitted, leaving out how achy they were suddenly. It was almost as bad as the dull hurt in his bones and chest. “Don’t feel like movin’.”

She clearly wasn’t buying it, though, and alarm flashed in her eyes.

“Hold on, Logan. I’m going to go get Hank.”

Oh, that couldn’t be good.

For about ten minutes he listened (not usually understanding the terminology) as they discussed his current state, words about symptoms for “graft host” something-or-other and how the metal in his body was, as always, probably what was making it happen.

“It may be possible to do an exchange transfusion,” Hank suggested, “especially given Victor’s healing capacity. But I still don’t understand how he’s showing so many symptoms so rapidly. It can’t be the adamantium every time we encounter complications in his treatment, that would be illogical and highly improbable.”

“Well, what else could it be? Hank, please just do something. He’s in a lot of pain and there’s no reason for him to be right now.”

“I understand. Let me fetch Victor, just sit with him. Help him fall asleep if it’s at all possible, annoyance at medical procedures certainly won’t help his condition.”

Logan rolled his eyes; how did people not get that he could hear them talking from _two floors away?_ Going into the next room over certainly wouldn’t prevent him from picking up their little conversations. If Jeannie didn’t want him knowing about this graft-disease-host or whatever, then she should’ve talked to the furball psychically instead.

She came back into the isolation cell after a moment, fixing a fresh surgical mask to her face. That annoyed Logan a little. He wanted to see her.

“Y’know I heard all’a that, right?”

“I…” Jean sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I forgot the sound-dampening in this room doesn’t work for you.”

“So… the hell’s host-graft-disease?”

“Graft-versus-host-disease,” she corrected, sounding very unhappy with whatever that term was. “It means Victor’s bone marrow is causing damage to your body, which isn’t what we were going for. We’re not sure how it’s happening so quickly. Usually there’s some amount of time between the bone marrow transplant and symptoms of GVHD appearing, but… you’ve got too many of the signs for it to be otherwise. My guess would be that Victor’s healing mutation means the marrow has grafted much faster than it would otherwise and your body is trying to reject it.”

“Fantastic.”

“Hank’s going to do an exchange transfusion, which might help. It’s an extreme option, and not usually something we would try… but Victor doesn’t have adamantium present in his blood, so if it’s the adamantium interfering with the graft then this should stop it.”

“An’ if that ain’t it?”

“Then… we’ll just have to try something else.”

“I weren’t kiddin’ before, darlin’. Hank ain’t touchin’ Laura an’ that’s final.”

“I know,” Jean nodded, coming fully back over and taking his hand despite it being slightly restricted by the IV line. “He won’t do anything to Laura, I promise.”

* * *

 

The chest pain and breathing difficulties were making things so uncomfortable for Logan that Jean had eventually convinced him to accept a sedative prior to the procedure. The amount of trouble the adamantium poisoning had already caused was absurd, and to not expect further difficulties from it would be negligent and just downright stupid on their parts. He was being put at risk for hemochromatosis with all the blood treatments he’d been getting, as well as clots, jaundice… the list went on, including (terrifyingly in her opinion) restrictive cardiomyopathy.

Drugged into sleep on the hospital bed, even the heaps of blankets and stacks of pillows couldn’t bury him enough to hide how sick he was. Hank was setting up the machine nearby that would replace Logan’s poisoned blood with Victor’s clean donations, venous catheters in his left arm and now an oxygen mask over his face where before it had just been a nasal cannula. It reminded Jean of when she’d fought to stabilize him after his second rescue from the Weapons Plus program, only many times worse because this wasn’t waiting for the effects of a drug to dissipate. This was her husband’s life now, tied to monitors and respiratory devices, always in pain and at risk of heart failure.

That realization, somehow, was what got to her finally. It sank in for Jean that there would be no recovery, that the marrow transplant may have been a pointless bust if this exchange transfusion didn’t alleviate the complications, and even if it did help this was only a temporary fix. Logan would just get weaker and more ill, eventually unable to make it to breakfast in the morning or get to the toilet on his own or even sit up without help. Cancer was such an ugly and humiliating disease, and this was how things would end for her husband…? This strong, fierce predator, such a noble beast, and also a fearless and heroic man who taught young mutants to be confident and defend themselves from a hostile world, would die unconscious in bed after lying that way for probably weeks prior? He deserved better.

Jean futilely tried to blink back the tears, only this time they were more stubborn than her. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her lab coat, but now that the first dots of moisture had escaped it was like trying to plug up a fire hose with tissue paper. Logan was already on his deathbed and she could do nothing but watch as he stayed in that deathbed for however many weeks or months it would take for his body to give up.

“Hank, can you excuse me for a second, I have to…”

Jean couldn’t even finish the sentence, rushing out of the isolation room and into the main space of the infirmary. She ripped the procedure mask off her face on the path to her desk, tossing it in the direction of a trash can but not caring if it actually found its way in, then collapsed despairingly into her rolling chair and buried her face in her sleeves. Most of her upper body was now on what was supposed to be her work surface, and she vaguely hoped the white cotton of her lab coat would muffle her ugly heaving sobs at least a little bit. The tuft of Logan’s hair that he’d gifted her earlier was in her pocket, and it felt as heavy as an anchor. Someday, that little ball of gray-black fluff would be all she had left of him…

“I might say for you to calm down and that everything will turn out fine, but we both know that’s not true,” Hank murmured sadly from behind her chair.

Jean somehow choked down the next burst of raw hurt in her chest and was wracked with shudders from the effort, but it let her get words out again. “I can’t do anything for him…!”

“There is very little anyone can do for him, my dear. I’m afraid he’s made up his mind.” One of her friend’s furry hands rubbed her shoulder. “But you’ve already done so much… you’ve done _everything_ for him until now. You are his everything, you and Laura and Brian. You made him feel loved when he saw himself as unlovable, you comforted him when he thought he could only fear. I have rarely seen someone feel so taken care of as he does when you’re with him. In many ways he has little besides you and your children, but that’s generally all he needs in any case.”

“Hank,” Jean sniffed, raising her damp face from her very wet sleeves, “I can’t… I barely remember how things were before we found him at Alkali Lake. Even back when he was just my patient, so much of my life was about him… how can I go back to the way things were if I’ve forgotten? Logan just… I just… god, I wish this wasn’t happening…”

The furry blue mutant gave a long but quiet sigh and settled in the folding chair beside her, adjusting his glasses and not saying anything for a moment.

“A Russian author once penned, ‘A man grows used to good things quickly and bad things slowly.’ I understand that doesn’t sound particularly comforting, but my misquoting it aside, there is a reason why I chose it. You forgot life without Logan because even at the beginning, subconsciously, you understood him as a positive change in your life. Once Logan is gone, it will take awhile for you to re-acclimate. But someday you’ll wake up and the ache won’t be as present. Instead of remembering how he died, you will remember how much you loved each other while he was here with us. So, all that’s left to do for you now is to keep loving him in the time there is left. That _is_ something you can do for him, and it’s probably the best thing, too.”

Jean managed to summon a watery smile, even as she was sniffing again and ineffectually wiping at her eyes. “You’re right. Thanks, Hank. Don’t tell anyone I had a nervous breakdown, okay?”

“This is a perfectly expected physiological reaction to extreme emotional stress, my dear. It wasn’t a nervous breakdown. In any case, I would advise you change to fresh scrubs before returning to the isolation suite. When Logan wakes up after the procedure he’ll enjoy hugging you more if you’re not wet and salty.”

In spite of everything, somehow that made her chuckle a little.


	11. Bad Dreams

“Did it hurt?” Brian asked, still plunged into the refrigerator. He’d recognized the sound pattern of Victor’s feet hitting the floor.

“Only for a couple’a minutes.”

For some reason, his aunt jumped out of her skin at the counter when Victor started talking. Brian could smell the jolt of fear as soon as it hit her, but that surprised him. He’d been on missions with Aunt Jean against brigades of FoH terrorists and she’d never flinched from them.

“Why are you all so quiet?” she stammered, tearing open a packet of sweetener for her coffee but spilling it all across the counter with her shaking fingers. “It’s going to give me a heart attack someday.”

“Sorry,” Victor almost whispered, and Brian looked to see his father’s gray eyes turn to the floor. His expression was the very image of guilt. “Didn’t mean to scare you… I can go.”

“It’s okay,” Jean answered. She wasn’t trembling anymore and her voice had gone back to normal, but the fear-scent was unmistakable. “I just need to pay better attention.”

There was a strange note in her words, making Brian feel like he was prickling with fear himself. Something was really wrong with this… maybe he just needed to distract them?

“So is Uncle Jimmy gonna get better now?” Brian asked, glancing from his father to his aunt and back again.

“Sure as hell hope so,” Victor grunted, seeming to recover before digging six or seven bags of pork jerky out of the cupboard. “He’s full’a my blood now, should help him some.” The wild mutant glanced over, his eyes flashing again with discomfort and shame. “I’mma just… go now. See you later, kid.”

Brian didn’t know why, but he suddenly had a sinking feeling behind his chest as he saw his aunt almost dissolve once Victor had left the room. Her hands were shaking horribly and some of her coffee sloshed across the counter in front of her. The fear was ebbing a little, but now pain was there, too, bombarding Brian with unpleasant pheromones. He almost had to step back.

“Okay. What the hell just happened?” he demanded, feeling shaking by the whole display that he’d seen.

“Nothing,” Jean answered quietly. “It’s not important anymore.”

“Y’know I can smell you, right?” Brian pointed out, getting scared because there was a niggling idea in back of his mind. He didn’t like what this might mean, how maybe Uncle Jimmy had said something once that explained this. Something ugly and horrible about Victor that he couldn’t quite recall at the moment. “Aunt Jean, what’s going on? Why are you so scared’a my dad? He’s better now. He doesn’t hurt people anymore.”

“Brian, please. I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

That, somehow, made him feel… gross. It was a completely non-committal answer, but also cemented the fact that Victor had done something truly awful to inspire this kind of reaction. Forgetting all about the snack he’d been after, Brian watched his aunt leave the kitchen in too much of a hurry and tried to remember what Logan had told him…

 _“Your dad, though, he weren’t so good at takin’ no for an answer. Made them. Hurt them by makin’ them do it, an’ that ain’t okay._ Ever _. You can’t do that, an’ I’ll know if you do. I’ll smell her on you, an’ her fear, an’ if I do I’mma castrate you myself.”_

Oh, God, no. The conversation was coming back to him, now, from the lifetime when his uncle hadn’t been dying and hadn’t been locked up unfairly. His skin broke out into those tiny bumps of unpleasantness, standing all his hairs up until he was fluffed like a threatened animal. He’d seen Uncle Jimmy get like this sometimes, whenever he was pissed and looking for something to kill.

_“Saw your dad hurtin’ somebody like that, once. Only remember that one time, but… god dammit, I could’a not been there to pull him off’a her, an’... Jesus. Never mind. Beat the livin’ fuck outta him for it, an’ he got took back to The Vault after that. Here’s the thing with that, too. Ain’t no way I can let that go.”_

Unable to hold them in, Brian’s dull silver talons shot out of his fingertips in a sudden spike of rage. Now he got it, that need for blood, how Uncle Jimmy loved feeling someone’s face break on his fists.

_“The need to hurt’s a sickness, kid.”_

Brian didn’t care. He needed to hurt Victor, now.

* * *

 

When Logan struggled back into the waking world, he was instantly annoyed that the ceiling swimming into focus over his head was still the one of the isolation room and not the one that said he was wrapped in his own blankets. But the achiness of his body seemed to be gone for now, his arms and legs felt strong again, even. Carefully sitting up, Logan noted the pile of empty blood-bags in the garbage and the recent smell of Jean - his wife must’ve checked in with him a few minutes ago.

Logan wasn’t cold anymore, either, which was nice. He popped the fluid line out of his arm without thinking twice and was surprised when the hole disappeared almost immediately. Well, then.

Passing a mirror on his way out of the infirmary, Logan discovered that where his hair and beard were still mostly gray, his face was back to normal and his eyes were bright again. On the walk up to his bedroom he tested his claws and they snapped out and back in smoothly, making him smirk.

Near the top of the stairs, though, he was alarmed at the stink of fresh blood - Victor’s. It was overlaid with the unmistakable scent of rage, and deep layers of fear with self-loathing. God, that could’ve been him a couple years back, except that the trail was clearly left by a very upset and violent Brian. That more than anything else sent Logan running - Brian was always happy and had never just attacked anyone before. This behavior was characteristic of Laura, not her cousin.

“Hey, HEY! Stop that!” Logan barked, having thrown the door open and found Brian raking bloody lines down his face in a fit of tears. He yanked the boy’s hands back by the wrists and pinned him. “The fuck’s goin’ on with you, kid? You smell like’n army hospital!”

“Just look at me!” Brian screamed back, hands balled into fists. “I get it! Everyone always stares at me because I’m _just like him!_ That guy in the mall was gonna shoot me ’cause he thought I’m him, and he was prob’ly right! I’m just like him… I’m gonna be sick just like he is… I… I’m gonna… Uncle Jimmy, please don’t let me get like my dad!” Brian whined.

Oh, fuck, he was _so_ not awake enough to deal with this right now.

“Uh… look,” Logan grunted, clearing his throat, “how ’bout you put on a clean shirt, stop tryn’a claw your face off, an’ then we’ll talk, okay? Lemme put on some real clothes.”

They ended up sitting in the grass on the front lawn, Logan smoking while Brian halfheartedly sipped at an orange soda and trembled pitifully. His eyes were still wet and red.

“A’right, first off, this ain’t what I wanted to wake up to after all the shit I put up with today,” Logan growled, glaring at his nephew from the corner of his eye. “Second, beatin’ the fuck outta Victor ain’t gonna hurt nobody, neither, so stop feelin’ bad ’bout it. Deserves to get beat up more often. Third, the fuck’s got into you, kid? I never seen you doin’ this shit before.”

“He hurt Aunt Jean,” Brian whispered, almost flinching from his own voice. “My dad came into the kitchen and… and I just watched her get so scared’a him. She’s never scared’a nothing, Uncle Jimmy. That made me get scared, too. And you said that it’s ’cause he’s sick. Wanting to hurt people is because you’re sick, and I just wanted to hurt my dad so much. People always look at me like I’m a big, slimy bug, ’cause they know I’m just like my dad. It sucks.”

“Hey. Look at me.” Logan waited to be obeyed before continuing. “You ain’t a bug, an’ people fuckin’ suck, so don’t think ’bout _nothin’_ they say or do, you understand? An’ this ain’t the first or last time your aunt ever got scared’a somethin’. I seen her be way more scared than she prob’ly was today. An’ you’re not sick, neither. What you felt like, an’ what you did, that don’t make you sick unless you wanna do it all the time. ’Sides, lots’a people wanna hurt your dad. He’s a prick.”

“Just don’t let me get like my dad, Uncle Jimmy,” Brian repeated, scrubbing his eyes with his fingers before taking a gulp of soda. “I don’t like hurting people.”

“The fact you don’t like hurtin’ people means you ain’t gonna wind up like him,” Logan soothed, pulling Brian to his side in a half-hug. “You’re gonna be an X-Man, an’ someday meet some girl who ain’t gonna care who your dad is, an’ then eventually you’ll have some obnoxious kid runnin’ ’round screamin’ when you’re tryn’a watch hockey in peace.”

That drew a shaky laugh from Brian. Logan paused briefly to find the words he needed, his nephew still lightly squished into his flank.

“Bein’ scared’a this happenin’ to you means it won’t. If you ever stop bein’ scared, then you’re in trouble. An’ you got your aunt an’ your cousin to help you stay on track, a’right? You’ll be okay.”

They stayed out on the lawn in the sun for a while after that, eventually returning to the mansion for dinner. Logan watched without saying anything as Brian scrubbed the blood off his hands in the kitchen sink, feeling sorry for what the kid had gone through today. He wondered if there was some way to keep his cubs from having to learn all his existential crises the painful way.

* * *

 

Logan insisted he was feeling perfectly fine despite the near-miss during his treatment this morning, but Jean still forced her husband to go to bed at 9:30 that night. It seemed to be the exchange transfusion that had helped him more than the bone marrow, but honestly she didn’t care. His skin was back to its normal color, he wasn’t wheezing anymore, he could go places without help and he was no longer in pain. Logan seemed to be Logan again.

Which of course meant that now their kids had to be in crisis. Brian’s little incident early in the afternoon had gotten Laura’s dander up, so once her cousin had stopped assaulting Victor she’d taken a turn herself. Laura, unsurprisingly, had been not only more brutal but more thorough. What _was_ unexpected was that Victor, for his part, had just let them do it. He'd done nothing to defend himself against the assault, allowing them to tear him to shreds and spending the rest of the day by himself. As far as Jean could tell, it was out of guilt.

Sighing internally, Jean lightly knocked on the door and waited for a moment until Brian scuffled up and opened it.

“Yeah?”

“Come on, you know the drill,” was all she had to say.

Brian followed her downstairs with his head hanging, which was typical whenever he thought someone was about to yell at him over something he’d done. Jean had no intention of punishing him, though. Instead she sat him down on one of the couches in the TV room and handed him a mug of mint hot chocolate, which had been his favorite since he’d been rescued from Weapons Plus.

“Wait, ain’t I in trouble?” Brian questioned, sniffing it suspiciously like he thought she’d poisoned it.

“Only if you keep saying ‘ain’t’ after I told you to stop,” Jean smiled, scooping up her own mug off a side table and sitting next to her nephew. “Your uncle never learned proper English and by the time we found him it was too late. You don’t have that excuse.”

“Sorry,” Brian mumbled before taking a gulp.

“So tell me what happened after you left the kitchen today.”

“I got scared,” the boy admitted, his gray eyes boring holes into the drink he was clutching. “I don’t wanna be like him… Uncle Jimmy told me I won’t, but I’m not sure. I’m made outta his genes, right? They made me to be like him.”

“Brian, Logan and Victor were both brainwashed to become weapons,” Jean reminded him gently. “We’re not going to brainwash you, and we’re not going to let anyone else do it, either. You’re your own person.”

“I have bad dreams about it,” Brian mumbled, slumping deeper into the couch. “I dream about… like, I’m back in the room I grew up in, but Laura’s not there. Someone left the door open and I’m looking for her, but then I see other kids who live there and… I start attacking them.”

“Did that really happen?” she asked, concerned. “Were they training you to go after the others?”

“Kinda,” Brian shrugged before downing the last of his hot chocolate. “They never just left the door open like that. I could’a got out, I guess. But sometimes they’d put this spiked thing on my neck and use it to drag me to other rooms. There’d be people in them, and the guards said if I didn’t follow my orders I wouldn’t be with Laura anymore. Laura was all I got, and I was all she got, too. So… I always had to do what they said.”

“Do you think it was your fault?”

“Sometimes.”

“It wasn’t. Nothing that happened there was your fault,” Jean assured him.

“But they made me kill people,” Brian whispered, pulling his feet onto the couch so his knees were up to his chin. “I didn’t want to do it, but they made me anyway. Sometimes when I’m asleep I remember how their blood tastes.”

“When you wake up, does it still feel real sometimes?” Jean questioned.

“No. Maybe for a couple seconds, but then I remember where I am.”

“So let me ask you something, Brian. You’ve heard quite a bit about what Logan went through when he was in the labs. Do you think any of it was his fault?”

“Course not,” her nephew answered automatically. “They tortured him until he couldn’t talk… I mean, _I_ couldn’t talk before I got here, but that’s just ’cause I never learned how. They made him forget.”

“Right,” she nodded. “Well, he _still_ has nightmares so bad that he almost stabs me to death in his sleep. But it’s not his fault. And it’s not your fault for what happened to you, either. Okay?”

It took a moment, but finally Brian nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Good,” Jean smiled, leaning over and hugging her nephew to reassure him. His arms went around her to return the hug, already extremely strong. Brian had gotten so big in the past year, genetic manipulation and his X-Men training beefing him up. It sort of made sense that he was concerned about being just like Victor given they were all but identical by this point. “Here, I know something that might help.”

Brian had needed a haircut soon anyway, so Jean ended up remedying that at almost 10:00 pm. She surprised him by trimming his hair to look like Logan’s, a bit shorter on the sides and back than the top (but without the weird ear-like points that her husband insisted on having). It went a long way to helping him look different from Victor, especially since he didn’t have the bristle, either.

Leading him to a mirror saw his face split into a wide grin: “Thanks, Aunt Jean. I like it.” Then Brian spun back around and hugged her again, relief shining from his thoughts.

“You’re welcome,” she smiled back. “Now go to bed. I know it’s summer, but you do still need to sleep.”

“Okay, I will. Night.”

“Good night, Brian.”

Returning to her own bedroom saw Jean get immediately annoyed because Logan was wide awake, sitting in the window and smoking but clearly having been up since she’d gone to talk with their nephew.

“You should be resting,” she couldn’t help but scold him.

“Yup,” Logan grunted, taking one last puff before stubbing out the butt of the cigar on the windowsill and swinging his legs back into the room. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Jean went over to pull him to his feet and then into her arms, feeling his chin rest on top of her head. She breathed him in, the cigar smoke and sort of an earthy-wolfish musk that was so familiar and comforting. Lacking the enhanced senses of her husband and their kids, Jean couldn’t really get much more than that, but she still liked doing it sometimes.

Logan was doing the same thing, which was of far greater benefit to him. His nose was in her hair like always, nuzzling against her skull before he lowered his face and gave a slight lick to her ear. Not really a new thing for him, but it still startled Jean because she hadn’t been expecting it. She kissed the side of his neck and that encouraged him to do it again.

They made love in the dark, nested in each other’s arms among the sea of blankets. Jean had missed this, she’d so missed this, the months of his imprisonment and then how sick he’d been until today. Going without for such a length of time made it mind-blowing where it had already been pretty incredible before.

Afterwards, though, Jean realized this would probably be one of the last times Logan was well enough for their passionate entanglements, and ended up crying softly into his chest hair. Logan didn’t say anything, for his part, only gently rubbing his big hands across her back and kissing the top of her head. He knew why she was crying and there was no comfort for either of them.


	12. Dying And Crying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Short chapter -_- Actually aside from having not posted one in almost half a month, it's also because I'm coming up on something I'm much more interested in writing than Logan's continuing medical problems (although those are fairly entertaining all on their own).

It took two weeks for the rejuvenating effects of the blood exchange to start fading, because the first morning of week three saw Logan waking up feeling a little heavy and then start bleeding from his nose as he was shaving over the sink.

_Well, that was nice while it lasted,_ Logan thought to himself, rolling his eyes as he wiped off his upper lip and just kept on with the razor.

Shrugging on a flannel without bothering to button it, he went downstairs for breakfast but paused outside the kitchen when he heard voices. Victor. Brian and… Scott? Interesting.

“Tell him what you told me, Brian.”

“I can’t… um… I just, like… _grrrmph!_ Lemme start over?”

“Take your time,” Scott encouraged.

“I wish you would leave,” Brian began after a moment. “I used to want to be where you are, but I don’t anymore. I know you’re different now ’cause of the meds, but… you can’t be my dad anymore. It’s like you said, I have a mom and a dad and a sister. But you hurt my mom, and that’s not okay.”

“Yeah,” Victor agreed quietly. “It’s not okay. I get it, kid.”

“Does that mean you’re gonna go?”

“Soon as I can. Gotta talk to SHIELD ’bout pickin’ me up.”

“Okay.”

Victor ambled dejectedly out of the kitchen then, which made Logan feel slightly awkward for having stood there eavesdropping. His brother jerked his head slightly in greeting.

“Mornin’, Jimmy. Your nose is bleedin’.”

“Uh… thanks. I know.” Logan frowned and wiped it with his hand again, annoyed at the smear of red on his finger. “Look, Victor. You really goin’ back to prison?”

“Might as well.”

“If you say so. You gonna give up on your meds, too?”

“Nah,” Victor shook his head. “Don’t wanna go back to that.”

“Y’know I can’t forgive you for what you did to her, neither. But… I forgive you for everythin’ else. So, uh, consider yourself absolved or somethin’.”

His brother paused, then nodded and even smiled a little. “Thanks, Jimmy. You’re real bad with grudges, so that means a lot.” Victor frowned slightly. “I don’t got time for this, obviously, an’ I know you don’t like bein’ ’round me. But… ask that girly’a yours to help you find everythin’ in your head. You should know all’a your shit if you’re nearin’ the end.”

“Will it get rid’a the nightmares?” Logan couldn’t help but ask.

“Dunno. Maybe.”

On that note, Victor wandered away down the hall and Logan finished his journey to the kitchen. Brian was busily dicing up a steak with his metal talons to mix in with his hot cereal, while Scott was preparing his customary two gallons of coffee and his boring-ass bowl of corn flakes. Such a gross, standard breakfast in Logan’s opinion. He didn’t like coffee or cereal.

“Mornin’, kid,” Logan grunted at Brian as he dove into the fridge for his own pile of meat.

“You heard everything.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yup. Sorry. Kinda wonderin’ why you hassled Slim ’bout this, though. I coulda helped you with this shit.”

“Yeah, but… he’s been teaching me for a while and he offered first,” Brian answered. His scent and voice were thick with discomfort. “I have a better attention span now.”

“He’s up to thirty-five minutes,” Scott added, looking over from behind his opaque glasses.

“Shut up, Scooter. This ain’t ’bout you.” Logan handed Brian another pack of cube steak for his breakfast before continuing. “So… kinda scared’a the answer to this, but how’d you figure it out?”

“She smells terrified around him,” Brian replied quietly.

Logan nodded, though it was hidden behind the refrigerator door. He scooped out his pile of bacon and sliced open the packages with one of his claws, then muttered several swear words because he’d forgotten that his knuckle would be bleeding all day now.

“Shouldn’t you stop eating raw meat if your healing factor is gone?” Scott pointed out in that irritating know-it-all way of his.

“Piss off,” Logan snarled, dumping the strips of fatty protein into a pile on the counter without even getting a plate first. The intended effect was reached; Scott scoffed and left with his own food. “There. Hey, kid, cook this for me, will you?”

Brian nodded enthusiastically and prepped the heap of bacon for him. That was one of his lesser-known talents; the boy knew his way around a frying pan. With that done the pair sat in the cafeteria together, wolfing down their breakfasts in silence. The thing Logan couldn’t wrap his head around was the fact that his nephew actually _did_ like coffee, the blacker the better; he wondered if Brian had picked up that disgusting habit from Scott.

“Uncle Jimmy…?” Brian mumbled once they’d both finished.

“Yeah.”

“Um, can’t you just keep getting blood?”

Logan sighed. _Not this again._

“Yeah, I could, but I ain’t gonna. For one, nobody wants my brother hangin’ ’round here no more. For another, I still don’t feel like draggin’ this out any further. Look, kid. This’s a shitty note to start a day out on, but I’m sick’a bein’ alive, a’right? You gotta understand that. I a’ready been kickin’ almost two hundred years. Think that’s long enough, an’ now I gotta say in things, I’mma let this happen. Only did this one treatment so you an’ Laura get more time with me an’ you know it, now quit talkin’ ’bout it. It ain’t gonna change.”

“I know, but… I don’t want you to go,” Brian sulked. “Neither does Laura. Or Aunt Jean. Or any of us, even Mr. Summers. We don’t want you to go.”

“It ain’t your choice,” Logan pointed out, maybe a little more harshly than he should’ve.

His nephew seemed to have no rebuttal for that statement; Brian just pushed out his chair and left, not looking at Logan.

* * *

 

Later that day, Logan was confronted about it by Jeannie.

“What did you say to Brian this morning?” she demanded, walking over to his desk where he was scribbling away in a notebook to put down what he thought should be their requirements for the new combat instructor. “He’s sat in his room crying all day. I found Laura trying to slap him out of it.”

“Told him the truth,” Logan shrugged, his left hand still planting nearly illegible words that weren’t even on the lines half the time. His right was holding a list of words that he didn’t know how to spell and kept referencing. “Ain’t my fault he couldn’t handle it.”

This got him smacked by his wife.

“What were you _thinking?!_ ” Jean exploded, her face starting to turn red. Normally that was a look he wore, not her. “I can understand why you act this way to other teachers, but don’t be like this with our kids. You’re _dying._ That’s a big deal to them! You can’t be so… so _mean_ about it with them! They cry themselves to sleep every night and it’s entirely your fault for acting the way you have been about this! Don’t you _ever_ stop and think about how the way you do things actually _affects_ us?!”

Logan had never seen Jeannie so pissed, and that made him pause for a long moment without meeting her eyes. It was somehow worse when she kept talking, even though he’d been trying to come up with something to say in defense.

“Three weeks ago you were having a breakdown over the pressure you’re putting on us by being sick. Does that just make you feel like you have the right not to care about it at all anymore?”

“Well… darlin’ I ain’t tryn’a be mean to Brian or nothin’. He was tryn’a change my mind.”

“No he wasn’t,” Jean snapped, shaking her head and folding her arms over her chest. God, he’d only made it worse somehow. “He was just trying to understand.”

The tension was giving him a headache; that was one of the more annoying parts of his healing factor being gone. He’d never had headaches before. This was going to be a bad one, too, he could feel it - his whole face was starting to pound, especially behind his eyes like a grenade had exploded there. Hank kept telling him that because he smoked and drank so much his blood pressure was awful and he was sure as hell feeling it at the moment.

“Baby, I weren’t tryn’a fuck with him… _uggghhhhrrr,_ my head hurts… I just… I…” Hank had told him not to get stressed out, without the healing factor his blood pressure was bad, he was such an angry man, he was so stressed out, fuck, fuck, his head fucking hurt, why were his eyes crossing…? “Jeannie?” Logan whimpered, trying to reach out for her and suddenly finding himself on the floor.

“Logan?” she asked, all her anger gone now. She was rolling him onto his back and then holding his face. “Logan, _breathe,_ deep breaths…”

Huh, okay, he hadn’t noticed his breathing getting fucked up until now when she was saying something about it. He didn’t remember if this was a leukemia-thing or a binge-drinking-and-chain-smoking-blood-pressure-thing. His back hurt now, too, and his chest a little. Was that why he couldn’t breathe? Logan could hear his wife trying to tell him something, maybe she was yelling, he didn’t know. Jean was feeling the side of his neck with her fingers.

Logan felt himself being jostled, like he was floating. Okay, he _was_ floating. Jeannie was telekinetically moving him because he was too heavy. That was good, he decided. It hurt, he didn’t want to try getting up on his own. He couldn’t really breathe and he thought his nose was bleeding again. The world was going away from him, now, which was nice because it took the pain with it, and when he woke up it was to the chemical stink of the medlab. Hank and Jean were looking down at him.

“Wh’ hap’n’d?” Logan slurred, staring blearily up at them.

“You’ve had a hypertensive emergency,” Hank answered, frowning worriedly behind his glasses. “Thankfully this was only a… I hesitate to use the term ‘mild,’ because ‘mild’ in this instance only means it wasn’t immediately life-threatening-”

“You had a heart attack,” Jean interrupted. “We’re putting you on blood pressure medication.”

“Okay,” Logan mumbled, exhaustion pulling him down so that he felt like his body was sinking into the patient bed. They probably gave him something to keep him from flailing around. “’M sorry ’bout makin’ Brian cry, baby. D’dn’ mean t’.”

“Don’t worry about that right now, we’ll talk about it later,” Jean answered, brushing down his hair. “Instead worry about the fact that I’m not letting you near another cigar again.”

“C’mon, th’t’s cruel’n unus’l,” Logan whined back at her, shaking his head a little. “Y’ain’t tak’n’ my booze too?”

“Every last drop,” she confirmed. “Don’t look at me like that, this isn’t funny.”

“No, no it ain’t funny,” he growled, trying to sit up in protest but immediately pushed back down by his shoulders. He didn’t try it again, though, he was still a little achy in his back. “You’re not takin’ my whiskey, only thing keepin’ me sane.”

“My friend, ‘sanity’ has never been one of your defining qualities,” Hank pointed out with a slight chuckle.


	13. Mengele

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So, two things. First, this chapter and the next one are inspired by a moment in the Wolverine comic series from 2010 where Logan got sent to hell and possessed by a bunch of demons. There's a part where he and all his various selves are holed up in his brain trying to fight the demons off, and it's spectacular. The 2010 series of Wolverine comics is one of the most hilariously, spectacularly stupid things I've read EVER, but I mean that in a good way. It's really fucking stupid, but it's so ENTERTAININGLY fucking stupid. I highly recommend it.
> 
> Second, and much more horribly, one of my psychiatric prescriptions expired (it's an amphetamine) and I'm super sleep-deprived and fucked up while writing this, so be warned, you are about to delve really deep into the ravings and hideous psychosis of a certified crazy guy who currently wishes he would die because the withdrawals are so bad. Seriously, you've been fucking warned, I really channel it coming up here. Seriously.

“I gave my husband a heart attack yesterday.”

“I find it unlikely you were the cause of… such an event,” Ororo argued, shaking her head before taking a sip of her tea. “He’s quite ill, after all.”

“ _No,_ you think?” Rogue muttered sarcastically. “He’s a binge-drinking cancer patient with blood pressure so high it’s amazing it doesn’t start shooting out his _ears._ That doesn’t seem to qualify as _sick,_ not really.”

“You’re not helping,” Scott interrupted, for once ignoring his latest mug of caffeine and fake sugar. “What’s his current condition?”

The four of them, as well as Emma and Bobby, were sitting in what had been the professor's office before the administrative duties of the school had fallen to Scott. Now, it was Scott’s office, though you couldn’t tell by looking except that there was a chair behind the desk now.

“Hank’s keeping him in medical for observation,” Jean sighed. “We’re starting him on a new medication to try and control his blood pressure, and I’m going to do what I can to keep him from smoking, but he let me know on no uncertain terms that the alcoholism isn’t up for debate.”

“Can’t you just give him a good slap?” Bobby joked, apparently unaware how inappropriate the question was.

“I did yesterday,” Jean replied bluntly, glaring at him in a way that was usually out-of-character for her. She realized right then how well and truly shot her patience had gotten over the last month or so. “It made him fall down and stop breathing.”

“Oh.” The frozen X-Man looked down at the floor, his expression now ashamed. “Um. I’m sorry, Dr. Grey.”

She found herself sighing again. “You didn’t know.”

“In any case,” Ororo interjected, “what I was getting at is that Logan was clearly long overdue for a major cardiac event. And given what I’ve heard you saying about what led up to said incident, your actions seem to have been far from unreasonable. I imagine that if any of _us_ were married to Logan, we probably would have smacked him long before now.”

Damn it, now she couldn’t help but smile the way all her friends were doing, and it just made her feel guilty. Logan’s current state of health, cancer aside, was very serious.

“I just want it on record that if it came to it, I would _never_ marry Logan even if you paid me,” Bobby snorted.

“Alright, enough from the peanut gallery,” Scott demanded, as always with no sense of humor. “Given that he temporarily recovered after his blood transfusion, I thought about asking him to help in at least some way with hiring and training the new combat instructor. Obviously that’s not going to happen, now, aside from the list he said he’d write. Did he at least get that done last week when I asked him about it?”

Of course that was what Scott was worried about. Jean briefly considered how therapeutic it might be to just scream.

“Dude, just not smart. Even for you, that just wasn’t smart.” Bobby gave a disapproving head-shake.

“Unfortunately, I concur with that assessment, dear,” Emma agreed. For once, the expression she directed to Jean was vaguely sympathetic. “He was in the middle of compiling it yesterday when he had his little _incident._ And I also agree with what Storm said. Jean’s reaction to her husband’s stupidity was completely understandable.”

“I appreciate your support, but don’t call Logan stupid again,” Jean growled.

“This is _really_ not helpful!” Rogue yelled at them. “We get it! Logan knocked himself on his ass and won’t get back up again! Can we _please_ focus!”

“Uh… yeah, why did you call us in here?” Bobby questioned, looking at Scott.

“Because, myself and their mother excluded, we all have Laura and Brian in our classes,” Emma answered. “At least, for the coming school term. And they’re both junior X-Men. This discussion was intended to be about them, not their father.”

“Real quick, though, about that, what’s going on with Sabertooth? I heard he’s going back to SHIELD,” Bobby wondered.

“He is,” Ororo nodded. “But given his mental status it’s to be considered ‘protective custody’ instead of incarceration. They’re going to employ him part-time for some of their more difficult missions as well, provided he maintains his mental health treatments.”

“Oh, great. So we might have to see more of him,” Rogue muttered.

“ _AHEM._ ” Scott wasn’t actually coughing. “Back to the point. Yes, we’re here to discuss Brian and Laura. And please, go one at a time.”

“I’m more worried about Laura,” Bobby admitted, finally getting serious. “Brian’s a tough kid, I mean, he’s had to deal with everything he learned about Sabertooth and he’d be handling that just fine if it wasn’t for the whole thing going on with Logan right now. But Laura’s wound so tight I sometimes worried about her snapping and killing people in class even before Logan got sick. I don’t know what it is about her, because as far as they’ve been able to tell us they went through identical experiences in the lab before we rescued them, but she’s… just more _volatile._ ”

“Victor and Logan were both subjected to brainwashing, but even before he got locked up and tortured for sixteen years Logan responded worse to it than his brother did,” Jean pointed out. “It’s a personality factor. Brian’s psyche could handle the things that were done to him, at least for the most part. Laura isn’t coping with it as well. She still has almost as many nightmares as Logan, but Brian’s are maybe once a week and he doesn’t even wake up from them looking to eat a sun like she does.”

“Wonderful. So it’s another classic example of Laura simply being too much like her father for her own good,” Emma stated.

“Please,” Scott told her, gesturing with his hand. “That’s not Laura’s fault, or Logan’s, no matter how much we may or may not like either of them.”

“Can _both_ of you stop insulting my husband and daughter? Thank you,” Jean snapped. Then she looked back at Bobby. “Incidentally, you’re right. Laura’s having a much harder time with this than she wants us to know. Brian’s been getting more attention because he’s not afraid to show that he’s sad about it. Laura’s… well, she’s Laura. If she was a boy I’d swear she was an exact clone of Logan.”

“So what can we do to help your daughter?” Ororo asked. Her gentle, genuine concern was a relief. “Given that this situation isn’t going to go away, how can we teach Laura to cope more appropriately?”

“You can’t,” Logan answered bluntly, startling them all as he barged right into the room and dragged a chair over for himself. “She ain’t gonna cope an’ you can’t make her. She’s just gotta do this on her own.”

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Jean immediately scolded. “Hank-”

“Is busy,” Logan interrupted, plunking down heavily beside her. “An’ I fuckin’ hate that place, I ain’t stayin’ there.”

“Then go lay down in your bed,” she snapped. “I’d really like to _not_ have a repeat performance of yesterday.”

“Because I would,” he snorted, clearly not having any of this. He glared around at the other X-Men. “So. Any reason I weren’t invited to this little party?”

That was when she noticed that his knuckles were wrapped in gauze and leaking blood, as well as the alcohol on his breath. God or someone help her, she might actually kill her husband on purpose at this point.

“Excuse us,” Jean told her friends, then grabbed Logan’s wrist so hard she probably bruised him and dragged him out into the hall with some help from her telekinesis. _*What the HELL do you think you’re DOING?!*_

 _My bones hurt._ Logan was averting his eyes, now. He wasn’t angry, he was upset with something. _Woke up an’ didn’t know where I was, all I could smell was the cleaners an’ shit. Claws came out an’ I almost gutted Hank. He wrapped my hands an’ told me to find you, so I did. Wanted to ask you ’bout somethin’, too, but I guess this ain’t a good time. Them painkillers don’t work, neither. Needed somethin’ stronger._

_*We can give you a higher dose of morphine, Logan. You should’ve just asked instead of going straight for a bottle of Jack Daniels. Now what do you need?*_

_Uh, well… Victor said that… prob’ly my memories’re just buried, not really gone. An’ that maybe you can find them for me. Might help my nightmares. But you’re busy right now, so… it can wait. You don’t even gotta do it, prob’ly wouldn’t be too fun for you or nothin’, neither. That’s all._

Jean sighed internally. Every time she thought she would really let Logan have it when he did something stupid, something like this came up and reminded her that he was usually forced into doing those stupid things because his life really was this unbearably sad. He didn’t even think his mental wellbeing ranked on her priority list after all this time.

 _*Hold that thought, Logan.*_ Jean ducked briefly back into Scott’s office: “Something’s come up, can we get back to this later?”

“I… suppose we can, yes,” Scott replied uncertainly. “What’s going on?”

“Presumably nothing that’s any of your business,” Ororo answered for her. Apparently she’d actually gotten that this wasn’t something Jean wanted to share. _Go take care of your husband, this can wait for him,_ her friend thought to her.

Jean just nodded her thanks, then led Logan by his hand more gently than she had before so that he could lay down.

“I can’t give you any more painkillers until the alcohol’s out of your system,” she informed him as she wrapped him in a blanket and helped him get comfortable. “But hopefully poking around in your head won’t hurt any more than it did the other times I had to.”

“I like you in my head,” Logan smirked. “All the other voices in there, may as well have one that makes sense once in awhile.”

Jean settled on the mattress beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Just close your eyes and relax, baby. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay.”

Channeling her focus, Jean lightly brushed against his consciousness and made sure she soothed him first. Logan’s mind was a terrible place, but usually it accepted her without too much protest. He knew she wouldn’t hurt him…

 _Except that I did,_ she thought bitterly to herself. _I did hurt him… stop. Pay attention to what you’re doing. Pretend this is like any other procedure._

It helped, when using telepathy beyond skimming surface thoughts, to visualize the subject’s mental inner workings like the hallway of an institutional building - long and straight with doors on either side to gain access to certain parts. Of course, with Logan it wasn’t quite that simple. His brain’s corridors were an Escher maze, upside down and backwards with doors sometimes just painted on and not really there and others that were so crammed they were barely held closed. To make things worse, even getting near one inspired terror and dread in both of them, which meant Jean had to whisper comfort into his thoughts and steel herself for whatever atrocities might lie beyond.

The first door which could be opened seemed unnervingly plain, but Jean could feel something ominous behind it and tried to brace herself before twisting the knob. As it turned out, it was more full to bursting than the others had looked to be, but not with objects or thoughts… at least none she could make out before a wave of black crashed over her, yanking her down with its undertow of blinding rage and crippling fear.

Jean could feel everything the way he had then, the rip of hard metal between his knuckles and the taste of blood - no, not just blood, but _shreds of flesh between his teeth and shards of bone lodged into his tongue. He was smeared with it, flattening his fur to his body, fluids that weren’t his gurgling in his throat before they shook loose and let him bellow with fury as his claws reaped a gristly tally of lives._

There was no visual, which she hadn’t expected. It was the most raw and painful emotion, rage incarnate like Logan’s blood had been turned to kerosene and then lit with a careless spark, underlain with shivering terror so powerful that in spite of everything it was a miracle he could even move or breathe. And then… there! A tiny shard of light, she clawed after it, trying to find the way out almost exactly as he’d been looking for it back then. The means of escape from this hideous pain…

...and when she got hold of it, she found him staring at her, for the very first time.

 _This was the bunker,_ Logan whispered, startling her. She should’ve expected he’d be aware of this process, but somehow the thought just hadn’t occurred. _Six years ago, right? Somethin’ like that? Didn’t have nothin’ before this, an’ you’re the first thing I ever saw that weren’t tryn’a kill me or beat me._

In the memory, Wolverine (he hadn’t been Logan yet, Logan had been hidden and there was only Wolverine back then) snarled ferociously at her.

 _*Apparently he didn’t agree,*_ Jean countered.

Logan chuckled. _Yeah, he did. He was just scared is all. Knew even then you were good, darlin’._

In memory-Wolverine’s mind, Jean couldn’t help but murmur encouragement, guiding him towards herself and gently holding him still so that memory-Jean could inspect his dog-tags. And then she watched herself smile, and for Wolverine, even back then, before he’d become Logan and fallen in love with her, it was like he was seeing the sun for the first time.

Jean fell backwards out of the memory, pulled deeper in on the current of torment. She didn’t want the visuals for what came next… injections, beatings, failed escape attempts that all ended the same with a shock collar around his neck five times stronger than what would be required to kill a bear. Blood in his eyes. Ache in his body. His claws itched horribly, so much they almost burned from the cold holding cell and too deep to ever scratch or rub. Chains. He was deliberately and cruelly eviscerated more than once.

Even this couldn’t prepare Jean for the ugliness that came shortly following, echoing those words of torture in her head the same as when she’d heard him screaming them through tears, because he’d been unchained and a girl was tossed in with him: _NO! I’M NOT A CHILD RAPIST!_

And the inevitable punishments that followed. In the mind of his memory-self, Jean held onto him through all of it, bearing the weight of his pain on herself and strangely finding a fleeting moment of triumph in his head: they could do whatever they liked to him, but it was true, he wasn’t a child rapist. Never. She praised him for that, because he’d given himself up when he already had nothing to selflessly protect an innocent, comforting and soothing him by saying that she was about to be rescued and she would always remember his kindness and that someday he’d see her again and she’d thank him for saving her.

Witnessing this horrible event, in addition to the memory of his screaming nerve endings, gave Jean her own share of pain. She ached for the fact that they hadn’t found him sooner, like they should have. Why couldn’t they rescue Logan the same time they’d rescued Rogue?

After that little horror film, the small mercy was that at least everything that came after (or before, depending on how it was looked at) was generally much of the same, pointlessly inflicting pain on him and testing his healing factor in the most disgustingly creative ways they could come up with, on the same level as what Mengele had “accomplished” way back when.

So where, Jean couldn’t help wondering as she hit the point of his capture, was the procedure to implant him with the adamantium…?

Well, of course it was earlier than this, she realized. She’d read his file. His sixteen-year stint in captivity hadn’t been the first time he’d been dragged into a laboratory and experimented on. There were several bland decades between, in fact, which Jean mainly drifted through the way Logan had done at the time, endless cage fights and drunken benders up in north Canada to drown out his lonely suffering.

And when she got there, Jean immediately remembered the old cliche about being careful what you wished for.

The intense levels of mind-shattering agony were far beyond anything she’d felt before, feeling liquid metal the temperature of volcanic lava _injected directly into his skeletal structure after they’d sliced him open and prized apart his muscles. He was under the blue-tinted water, white lights glimmering through the surface before the pain struck him blind and deaf and thoughtless. He couldn’t even scream, the air tube was in his mouth and he’d practically bitten straight through it from the clench of his jaw, bubbles streaming from the exhale valve and his nose. He hated them in the last moments he could still hate, because they were escaping and he couldn’t._

_Burning. All burning. He was in Hell, there was a Hell and he was in it, he could almost hear Satan laughing because he couldn’t even howl or cry in defiance of this torture. The burning, fuck, the water was like ice and he was strapped down with big rubber bands and before the water had been the worst part because it seared his skin with its frigidness._

_It burned. It BURNED! It so burned, in him, there were big drills stabbing into his cheekbones, oh god, they were drilling his fucking face! He didn’t know if this was real, because it couldn’t be, he must be in Hell, there was nothing like this in real life, this burning, like the flesh was charred away from him, like that time in ’Nam when he hadn’t gotten extracted in time and was dead-center in that napalm strike… it took hours…_

_No. NO! No, no, no no nononononono, the drills were in his arms now, they were cutting again, right to his bones, the water was full of his blood and it was getting in his eyes and his nose. They made him come back to the burning, made him wake up, told him to remember this because they were making him better… but this couldn’t be better, this was Hell, and he was on fire, like that time in the napalm in Vietnam._

_He wanted to beg, please make this stop, or kill him, fucking kill him, he couldn’t take his, his heart was pounding straight out of his chest now and oh god that was where they were cutting next..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again, the next chapter is going to keep up with the tone this one ended on. Hooray for suddenly going off my meds!


	14. The Wolverine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, sometimes I scare MYSELF with the things I write. This is totally centered around Weapon X, and yeah, consider yourself warned again.

_ The water wasn’t blue anymore, on the rare occasion he could still open his eyes. It was full of blood and little drips of metal that sometimes leaked out of his body while they were cutting and drilling and peeling away. It felt like they were peeling  _ him _ away, ripping open everything that made him a man and destroying it to make room for their own terrible creation. _

_ They were done with his chest, moving lower, slitting his lower arms and hands to get at the claws. Oh fuck, oh fuck, he forgot the claws, fuck, they’re doing his claws now and the feeling was somehow so much worse than even when the spinning needle-drills had stabbed into his face. And with his claws… no, fuck, something fucking save him from this now, even though nothing saved him before, because they’re peeling open his lower torso and reaching under him and into him because now they’re going for his backbone and FUCK FUCK FUCK NO FUCKING SOMEONE KILL HIM NOW SO THIS WILL END. _

_ He could feel the scorching heat from the big needle-drill-things in his guts, and his guts were all still connected even though they were hanging out into the freezing fucking water and the hot metal in the tubes are touching his guts and FUCK SOMEBODY KILL HIM NOW. And they’d kept him in the freezing fucking water for twelve fucking hours before the procedure started, because it was supposed to help somehow, but fuck those fucking liars because really it gave them an excuse to fucking starve him. And even with nothing to eat or drink for twelve hours before this, this was so fucking unbearable and he wanted to fucking die so bad that apparently his body fucking agreed with him finally and his fucking guts were still fucking connected and now even though there was nothing fucking in them, somehow they came up with something and he’s fucking puking into the fucking mouthpiece of his fucking air hookup. _

_ But finally, if only for a single moment, that made them stop, because he started blacking out and they had to clear his airway so that things could keep going. And then he almost wished they hadn’t stopped, because now without the metal being drilled in he could feel all that fucking cold water in his torn-open abdomen and how the cold was actually freezing the fucking metal to his fucking spine and fuck oh fuck did that feel so fucking wrong in so many fucking ways. And his guts were trying to get back in, his body was trying to fix itself the way it had so many times before, but they were undoing it as fast as it happened because they were only halfway down his vertebrae and needed to still be able to reach it once they were done sucking the vomit out of his windpipe. _

_ The fucking plastic thing was stuffed back into his mouth and there was air in his lungs again, and he knew the pain was about to come back but somehow he still wasn’t fucking ready for it. They were reaching under his neck while they finished his backbone, moving two of the metal plates he was pinned to so that they could drill his shoulder blades and inject him there. But fuck, at least his spine was done, because they’re letting his guts go back in. The muscles grew over his intestines again, and they were undoing one of the restraints now. _

_ But it couldn’t be over, something was wrong… _

_...and then they were slicing open his lower flanks to get to his pelvis. There was some kind of injections going into his elbows, some chemical, which only made the pain worse which shouldn’t have even been possible. It was like millions of tiny blades cutting their way through his arteries, an inner clawing itch that made its way into the center of his chest where his heart was, and then he could feel it hammering again, his lungs were dragging in more air than before. Maybe something was wrong and he’d been about to croak, and… and that made him really fucking angry, now, because he’d probably been about to die and now they were making him live again. _

_ Rage. _

_ Pure, clean rage, sharper than everything he’d ever felt before, overpowering even the blinding agony of this  _ thing _ that was happening to him. It cleaned him out, made him think again, but the only thought in his head was I WILL FUCKING KILL THEM IF IT’S THE LAST FUCKING THING I EVER FUCKING DO. _

_ The muscles were being stripped from his thighs, from his shins, from the tiny little bones in his feet, but he could barely feel it anymore, so focused on the boiling vengeance cooking in his mind. These fuckers, they weren’t making him any fucking better, he’d already been the best there was before this. They were fucking with him for the sake of fucking with him and now he fucking knew it, he fucking got it, and he would make them fucking PAY! _

_ There was nothing before or after this, not anymore. All there was now was this angry, angry creature, who had already been a tough fucking bastard who’d been made even fucking tougher by these fucking idiots. They were FUCKING WITH HIM! He would not stand to be FUCKED WITH anymore! _

_ Even though there was no longer any before or after for him, he knew there had been many names that he’d been called. James, Jimmy, Sergeant Howlett, Sergeant Logan… they were all from that before that was no longer there. There was no James or Jimmy or Sergeant Howlett or Sergeant Logan anymore. Because only one name was for him, he’d been called it a few times by people who’d been scared of him. Those people were no longer there, just like his before and his after were no longer there. His feet were closing up and his bones were almost cool and his claws were hard in his arms. And these fuckers who’d fucking fucked with him would fucking know him as that name when he was killing them. He would look right into their fucking faces and see his name in their fucking eyes as he gutted them, because there was no before and there was no after and maybe there never had been. There was only Wolverine. _

_ Weak, stupid things, Wolverine knew. He would kill them. He knew how to kill them, how to get them ready to be killed, by giving them some lies like the ones he’d been given. He let his eyes roll back and close again, like they did before, forcing down his breathing and his heart so they’d think he was weak and docile. Wolverine felt for the coldness of that awful water with his skin, focusing on the freezing liquid that was so full of blood and foam and cooled metal drips that he knew they couldn’t see through it. They didn’t know. But they would. _

_ Hands, those gloved rubber hands, the ugly fucking rubber-clothes guys in their ugly fucking masks. They were unstrapping him, and moving the plates, feeling, poking, checking their work. They pulled Wolverine from the water and kept feeling and poking and checking, taking the plastic air mouthpiece from his jaws. _

_ And then suddenly Wolverine’s ears were filled with screams and yelling and loud, loud alarms. His eyes were full of blood that he couldn’t tell whether it was their or his, but he didn’t fucking care, either, blood, BLOOD, their BLOOD was HIS now and he would FUCKING EAT THEM given the chance. And his new claws made his hands flash with pain for a second, but now they were also these beautifully ugly instruments of death, singing a metal whine in the damp air as they cut down anything before him in his blind path of destruction. _

_ His eyes were full of blood, and his ears were full of screams, and his hands were full of death, and he had no before and he knew there wouldn’t be an after but fuck that because he was fucking Wolverine and he was giving them exactly everything they fucking deserved. _

_ Such a clean, beautiful thought, and that made him howl their death in a way he’d never howled in that before that was no longer there, and even though there was no after he knew he would always howl this way now. Because he was Wolverine. He was death incarnate. _

Jean was thrown from the end of that memory, rolling off the bed into a tangled heap. She barely found her feet and made it into the bathroom, throwing up in the sink because it was closer. The experience was so harsh and so visceral that she’d almost forgotten who she was, trapped in the terrifying inferno of the animal that had buried Logan and kept him alive for so long because it was too stubborn and horrible to die.

Once she’d recovered, Jean stumbled back into the bedroom and saw that Logan hadn’t made it further than the floor. He was still clutching his gut and heaving, muscles spasming and almost making him look like he was having a seizure. Worse still, his claws had shot out through the gauze dressings and his knuckles were leaking blood everywhere. Even once he stopped vomiting he was still coughing and hiccuping and shaking, which made Jean realize that they weren’t any of those things - they were sobs. She didn’t need to be a telepath to sense his fear and pain.

She was still trembling a little herself, but she didn’t let that get in the way. Jean helped Logan from the floor and got him cleaned up, putting him in a clean shirt and changing the bandages on his hands.

“It’s okay,” Jean told him, even though she didn’t know if that was true and simply couldn’t think of anything better to say. She could still feel his claws like they were in her own hands, her body still hurt where they’d been operating on him. “It’s over, it’s just a memory.”

“It’s never over,” Logan mumbled, quiet but with tears still running slowly down. “It’s in my head every night. Just didn’t know all’a how it happened ’til now.”

“Do you want to stop?”

It took a long time for him to answer, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his plaid shirt. “No. Should get it over with.”

A glance at the alarm clock by the bed surprised her by saying it was past 9 PM, much later than she wouldn’t guessed. They’d missed the entire day, including two meals, but after what she’d just experienced eating was the last thing Jean was interested in.

“Logan, are you  _ really _ sure-”

“You gotta find somethin’ else,” he insisted, desperation and fear creeping into his tone. His eyes were wide and scared in a way she hadn’t seen for a while. “Just… anythin’ else, to drown it out.”

Unfortunately, given his timeline and the parts she’d gotten through, Jean felt dread growing in her stomach at the realization that the next step was most likely Vietnam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, so, short chapter, but come on, I just put up three chapters in less than ten hours. Also, more fucked-up shit to follow, because my drug-withdrawal isn't quite done torturing this poor guy yet apparently.


	15. Quiet Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So another short chapter, but I'm a little more okay with that because the length of this work is getting out of hand as it is and I may end up skipping some things I originally planned. I have a hard time keeping my stories to a reasonable length, and that's probably why I don't have very many hits/kudos; my shit is just too damn long and rambling.

Regarding the Vietnam War, there had been so many case studies published, so many books written, articles in papers and online, research papers by universities and examples cited by psychiatrists to point towards what they viewed as a greater narrative of medical facts. Jean had read so many of those papers and studies, and watched psychology interviews, and written inquiries to institutions on behalf of Logan - especially after she’d found out for sure he’d been present for this pathetic excuse of a war.

And just like with what he’d offered about Weapon X, through sobs after his nightmares or in his drunk ramblings once his healing factor had started slowing and he’d been able to get drunk for real, these third-hand accounts she’d sought out were nothing compared to the brutality and horror of Logan’s memories.

Treading back through missions and ambushes and countless helicopter crashes (which certainly hadn’t helped his fear of air-travel, though that seemed to go back further than even this) and being caught more than once in the strike zones for Agent Orange and firebombing runs and losing more soldiers under his command than could probably be counted in the years he was stuck there with Victor… for Logan, the irony was sometimes the worst.

There were so many times he should've been killed, but of course that was impossible, and often these incidents went unwitnessed because those around him had been gruesomely butchered. His officers sometimes called him “Lucky James” for escaping those scenarios, seemingly unhurt, though they couldn’t put together how he arrived back to base on foot in a uniform riddled with bullet holes or even burned clean from him.

It had haunted his dreams a few times, though he’d never really understood what was going on until now, how the second time his squad couldn’t evac in time and were about to be napalmed by their own air force Logan hadn’t waited for it to hit. Watching his young soldiers die in such a horrific way once had been more than enough, so right before the firebombs hit he’d just emptied his machine gun into them himself because it was merciful. Then, with their bodies around him and all the trees catching and feeling himself be burned alive, he’d just laid there and screamed for as long as he was able.

Gone to her head, having seen them side-by-side now, Jean decided that Vietnam was probably the only thing rivaling Weapon X for inflicting pain on her husband. Weapon X had gone on for much longer, but his predatory mindset had eventually tuned out everything he was until he could only see blood and death that was deserved by those he gave it to. He’d gotten used to it eventually and had only begun suffering for it mentally almost a month after the X-Men had rescued him. But this war, like with so many others besides him, had thrust him into a completely pointless conflict where he lost dozens of friends and couldn’t see a way out from. Before Vietnam, Logan had never drank as much as he did then.

The humiliating circumstances had broken him down just like they had for millions of other soldiers. When he wasn’t drinking like crazy to drown out the screams, it was because he was on a mission collecting more of those screams (very often his own) or pounding heroin with the rest of his platoon.

At the very beginning, when he hadn’t been as damaged and was only a squad leader, he’d had a fling with one of the army nurses on his base. Then, after weeks turned into months, she’d noticed that he’d been coming back again and again with no soldiers and usually no clothes, and she’d gotten scared of him. She thought he was leading them to their deaths on purpose. That had hurt him, cutting deeper than any wounds he’d suffered in the field, and started his long love-affair with alcohol and hard drugs, and in the haze of those substances probably scores of local prostitutes that he didn’t remember paying for the next morning.

Of course, his brother certainly hadn’t helped. Even before the incident which had gotten them officially found out by the military higher-ups (and consequently Major Stryker), Victor had been completely out of control - because unlike Logan, in addition to murdering civilians and burning down their villages for the hell of it, Victor _was_ a child rapist. Really, he was an _anything_ rapist, as long as it moved and screamed he would chase after it for his fun. Logan could do nothing most of the time except look away, because it would be more trouble if he said anything, until finally just a couple months shy of the war ending he’d snapped and stopped his brother in the act. This had gotten their platoon leader killed, and the rest of that event saw them both recruited for Weapons Plus.

(Eventually, of course, Stryker had been put on trial by SHIELD about a year and a half after Logan’s second rescue. It wasn’t public, but both of them had gone out of necessity. Jean and several other X-Men had ended up testifying on Logan’s behalf - just seeing Stryker had terrified him to the point he couldn’t stop throwing up and having panic attacks long enough to say his piece. That had also been used as evidence against Stryker and he was hit with fifteen consecutive life sentences.)

But there was one small advantage to torturing her husband like this; having now completed what she was sure were the two most painful episodes of his long life, Jean imagined a thick black Sharpie in her hand and wrote **WEAPONS PLUS** and **VIETNAM** and **SENSELESS DRUNK YEARS** on the doors of his memories. Things were making slightly more sense for him now, not quite as blurred and mashed together. The insanity of his mental hallways were straightening themselves, almost not enough to notice, but it had to be at least a little better for him.

Jean struggled to brace herself for the next door, not quite sure what she was about to encounter given that there was somewhere around thirty years to fill in until she got to Logan storming Omaha Beach with Victor.

Surprisingly, instead of more horror that approached the same level as him being forced to mercy-kill his soldiers or witnessing the exact moment his personality had split, Jean discovered a period of Logan’s life that was fairly tame and peaceful. He and Victor wandered around, never more than a town apart and relocating whenever they had to assume new identities for whatever reasons came up. They usually spent their time as construction laborers or factory workers, unskilled professions that didn’t really ask too much about where they were from or why they were there.

Emerging finally from behind that door, Jean labeled it **QUIET YEARS** with her pretend marker and discovered that in the real world her husband was on the verge of falling asleep. It had been a nice change for Logan, though, just being bored into slumber by watching himself build car parts or haul lumber between investigating different cigar brands to try and find the tastiest ones while watching the oddities of technology start to spring up, miraculous little inventions he never would’ve dreamed about as a child. But somehow he’d never quite understood what the craze was with television sets; he still preferred radios because he got enough of people’s ugly mugs during his job. Logan’s favorite thing was wax paper, because it let him wrap up his lunches in a tidy little bundle for work, keeping in the meat juice for his sandwiches but repelling the sawdust and metal shavings.

Emerging from Logan’s mind, Jean pulled him closer with her arms so that he could snuggled up to her in his sleep. Through rediscovering those “quiet years,” he had relaxed considerably, comforted by the idea that his life hadn’t always been dominated by war, murder and violent death. He’d woken up in the mornings during the 50’s and not thought about the hells he’d visited previously, only grousing to himself that he’d have to put up with his coworkers’ insignificant bullshit. He’d been able to sit on a bench at a factory during the middle of the day and eat a terribly-put-together sandwich for lunch like any other man, mentally humming the tune of a song he’d heard on the radio five or ten years before that was no longer popular.

Despite Victor scoffing at him for it, Logan had marched in lots of protests for other people’s rights simply because he also knew how it felt to be different. In spite of everything, the truth of the matter was that Logan had been a kind soul for a very long time, and Jean could still see it shining through from deep within. He’d existed this way decades before she’d been born and even having been damaged by life, he still existed that way no matter how hard he tried to deny it.

* * *

 

Spelunking through Logan’s brain had taken up most of yesterday and all of the previous night, so they napped through the morning until Jean was woken up by the almost literal growling of her husband’s stomach demanding food. It was slightly before lunch, but they’d already missed three meals, so neither of them particularly cared. The cafeteria wouldn’t be open yet but that was what the kitchen was for, anyway.

“So what happened to ‘later?’”

Jean looked up from her chicken cesar salad to see an extremely irritated Scott. She didn’t rise to the bait, but unfortunately, like always, Logan did.

“Anyone ever told you how much of a shit you are, Summers? Other’n me, I mean? ’Cause clearly I ain’t been doin’ a good enough job.”

“I would’ve thought you’d be interested in things that concern your children,” Scott retorted passive-aggressively.

“Boys, please,” Jean interjected. She really wished someone else could be referee between them sometimes, because it had stopped being fun after the first thirty thousand times. “Scott, not now. Logan, finish your steak.”

“Can I just ask what was so important that you blew off a meeting about your own kids?” Scott demanded even as he reached for what was undoubtedly going to be his twentieth cup of coffee for the morning.

“Can I ask whether you actually give a fuck ’bout my kids or if it’s just ’cause they’re students an’ if somethin’ happens to them it makes you look bad?”

“Okay, both of you need to stop,” Jean butted in. “Scott, I’ll explain everything later, now please go indulge your caffeine dependence somewhere else. Logan, stop letting him antagonize you and finish your lunch.”

“Jean-”

“OUT.” She jabbed her finger at the doorway to make it clear she wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Logan, I shouldn’t have to tell you to eat _steak._ ”

“Full,” he grunted, shrugging.

Jean mentally filed that away for later investigation, knowing it could mean his liver was swelling up as a symptom of the leukemia. But now Scott had finally left, so she could get to a more immediate issue. “Please stop letting him rile you up. You haven’t been taking your blood pressure medicine long enough for us to know if it works yet and you need to be careful.”

“Can’t you just make him be less of an asshole?” Logan complained, rolling his eyes.

“Believe it or not, it was worse back when we were dating,” Jean smiled. “And you still need to stop being so angry.”

With some amount of prodding, she did eventually get him to complete his meal and then dragged him down to the infirmary. Since Hank was Logan’s primary, Jean would’ve had a hard time making an accurate assessment on his condition because she wasn’t as familiar with the microscopic specifics to his disease like the other doctor was. So Hank would have to poke him around the bottom of his ribs and feel beneath his arms, not her.

“It’s slightly enlarged, but not dangerously so,” the furry blue mutant concluded a few minutes later. “Your lymph nodes do seem to be swelling up as well, though. Please keep an eye on it and tell me if you experience any new pain.”

“Got it,” Logan grunted as he pulled down the bottom of his wife beater and shrugged his flannel back on.


	16. Ready... Or Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I debated the time-skip between the last chapter and this one, but like I said, I've been dragging this out long enough. We're near the end, people.

“Remember to write down the scale you use,” Scott told him as his hands scratched the pencil across. “This one equates one inch to one yard, so you write that at the bottom of the diagram in the left corner.”

“Okay,” Brian nodded, obeying at once. His heart wasn’t in this, though. It hadn’t been for months. “Why are these always from past missions?”

“Because this is just an exercise to help you get familiar. Amateurs practice until they get it right, but professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong. Always keep that in mind. Once I know you won’t get it wrong, I’ll start letting you help me with mine before we go on missions.”

Brian finished up his work in silence, then handed the oversized sheet of grid paper for Mr. Summers to inspect the final product. He didn’t really care, though, because he didn’t care about much these days, not even becoming an X-Man. Aunt Jean and Uncle Jimmy’s one-year wedding anniversary was next week, which also meant that roughly a year ago was when Uncle Jimmy had gotten sick and then thrown in prison. He was much worse off now than he had been then, though.

Brian and Laura had just watched as Logan’s health deteriorated in front of them, this time painfully aware of what was happening while also knowing that there was nothing to be done about it. There would be no more treatments, no more temporary recoveries. His aunt hadn’t even been teaching this semester, because she had to take care of Logan and he would never get better.

Worse, it was a good thing that Brian had been doing his focus exercises with Mr. Summers for so many months, because unlike the last school year Laura wasn’t constantly kicking his ass about his homework. In fact, where before she’d been an honor roll student, now she was pulling C’s and D’s in all her classes. She’d retreated into herself, shutting out the world and wallowing in her emotional pain.

“Brian?” His teacher’s voice snapped him out of his miserable thoughts like always. “Are we going to go through the usual routine or can we just skip a step for once and have you tell me?”

“It’s nothing different from the usual shit,” Brian muttered, forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to swear around teachers. “I feel weird about this, and I know it’s wrong, but, like, I hate being around Uncle Jimmy now. ’Cause it’s like he’s not even there anymore. All I can hear is how his breath rattles, and all I can smell on him is death. But that death might be another heart attack instead of the cancer. So things could still give us a really bad surprise, even if we think we’re ready for what’s happening.”

“That’s normal,” Mr. Summers commented, which he hadn’t expected. “Brian, I’ve already said this multiple times, and you need to believe me when I tell you this because I’m not interested in saying it several more times. What you’re going through, and what you’re watching your family go through, is a very ugly, very difficult experience. But you need to just let yourself feel what you’re feeling and eventually cope. Most of the time, you’ve been able to do that until now.”

“But it’s real, now,” Brian mumbled. “It’s been a year and now Uncle Jimmy looks how he did when he got outta prison. We didn’t have last Christmas or his birthday with him, and maybe he won’t even make it to Christmas this year, either. And there’s no way in hell he’ll make it to his birthday. I just… y’know, it’s been all these months, so how come I still ain’t ready for it?”

Mr. Summers just shook his head. “Nobody ever is.”

* * *

 

Dying a slow death meant that you didn’t notice things happening until you realized one day, very suddenly, that it hadn’t always been like this. Because just now Jean was remembering that it hadn’t always been like this - her husband hadn’t always needed to have his vitals taken three times per day, he hadn’t always needed help to limp down the stairs on the days he could even make it that far at all, he hadn’t always spent eighteen hours a day sleeping because he was too drained to keep his eyes open.

Logan hadn’t always needed Jean to steady his arm so he could drink soup broth out of a coffee mug because his liver was so swollen that he couldn’t eat anything more solid than that. He hadn’t always needed a constant oxygen feed cranked up to four liters per minute and he hadn’t always been exhausted just from getting up to use the bathroom. He hadn’t always spent every moment of his life in pajamas and hospital gowns, tethered to a fluid line and on his back in bed.

Jean was reading to him, because he liked listening to her voice when he was awake. Logan barely talked at all anymore because his lungs were too weak, but he could still think things to her if he needed something. Annoyingly, though, if he _did_ need something he’d made a habit of keeping quiet about it because he didn’t want to trouble her. That, for Jean, was probably the most terrible thing of all. The worse off a patient was, the better behaved they were. When she’d been a medical student and then an intern, she’d seen it very often - the man with a broken toe would be constantly demanding painkillers or another pillow to prop up his foot, but the one down the hall from him would be dying with a side effect of agonizing chest pains but not press his call button because he didn’t want to make more work for the nurses.

_*I’m going down for coffee, I’ll be right back,*_ Jean informed him, stroking the back of his hand.

Logan opened his eyes to look at her briefly, then closed them again without otherwise responding. He was probably about to drift off again. She set the book aside and went to the kitchen, discovering that Hank had apparently had the same craving.

“How is he?”

“The same,” Jean answered. “He’s ready. He’s _been_ ready for weeks, now. I think he’s just waiting for something and won’t let go until it happens.”

“That’s far from uncommon.”

“I know.” She sighed and finished fixing her coffee. “I’ll yell if we need anything, Hank. You should get some sleep.”

“Good night.”

Jean went back up and sat down by the bed again, taking a sip of coffee and noticing that Logan was watching her. He reached out slowly, his arm trembling with the effort, and fumbled around for her hand until he found it. His grip was weak and his skin was cold.

“Jeannie?” he croaked out through the oxygen mask.

“Sshhh, don’t try to talk,” she whispered, squeezing his fingers gently and setting down her coffee so she could stroke down his hair.

“You come find me in my head?” Logan asked, his stare intensifying.

“Yes, I can do that.” Clearly this was important to him. “Just close your eyes and relax.”

Once he’d done so, Jean slipped into his thoughts. Unlike several months ago when she’d gone through them, as well as the few occasions since then when she’d needed to telepathically communicate with Logan, there was no hallway and no doors. Instead it was just a soft grayness, like being inside a fog. There was no discernible ground or walls or really boundaries of any kind, which made it somewhat disorienting until Jean adjusted. Logan’s mental self was crouched over a big, dark lump, and she moved towards him.

Logan raised his head to watch her approach, and she was startled. He was young and strong again, black hair and hazel eyes no longer dulled by pain. But he was… off. His clothes were clean and almost new looking, no stains or tears in the fabric, and he was clean-shaven here, which was something he’d never been except when she’d made him shave for their wedding.

_He’s leavin’ me, y’know. Ain’t been too loud for years, but he was always… there in my head a little. But he ain’t gettin’ back up again._

Jean knelt beside Logan in his mind’s eyes, realizing he was bent over the slumbering form of a large black wolf. _*Wolverine.*_

_Yeah. I hated this part’a me for so damn long, baby. He’s so ugly an’ basic an’ he made me into a mean bastard. But without him… never would’a lasted long as I did. I prob’ly owe him more’n I know. An’ he_ is _me. How’s that fuckin’ work?_

_*Logan…*_

_It’s okay. Not why I wanted you here, anyway. Somethin’ I gotta show you._

He didn’t waste any time, reaching back into his own mind. Jean slowly grasped that he’d found some crucial fact that he’d been seeking, an important piece of the puzzle because she hadn’t been able to completely solve it for him those past months by walking around in his thoughts.

Logan pointed, and she watched as all the versions of himself that she’d seen appeared from the grayness. _I need to know it’s okay._

Jean understood what he was asking for. All these little pieces of himself had to be dealt with, given closure, because they had all become integrated into the man he was. They were all lost in their own ways, some more obvious than others. All his pasts needed to be soothed away one last time, come to terms with, rationalized. So the went down the line in descending order.

Weapon X Logan was dressed as she’d found him, wearing ragged army pants and an equipment belt and that stupid headpiece. She held both of his hands and reassured him that he was still human. Vietnam Logan was barely clothed at all, his fatigues almost completely burned away. Jean comforted his lonely humiliation and told him he was forgiven. Factory Worker Logan from the “quiet years” was in his work uniform, wondering if his empty life was just a waste of time. She smiled to him and told him how many lives he would later save and influence as an X-Man.

World War II Logan was in his army gear and a green metal helmet, thinking over the liberation of Dachau and how some of the prisoners were still mistreated by the men who were supposed to rescue them - he wondered if there really were “good guys” in this war. Jean explained that yes, what they’d done was wrong, but eventually he would be on the right side and know it for sure. World War I Logan was in a soaked and muddy uniform, shivering and wondering if he’d ever be warm again. She wrapped him in an imaginary blanket.

Civil War Logan still had a gaping hole in his blue jacket from where he’d taken a cannonball to the chest, questioning how even that hadn’t killed him and what he would do with his life after this war was over. Jean told him he was tough enough to survive most things, so he shouldn’t worry about it. And then came Young Man Logan, wearing rags and barefoot, hating the grime on his body and dreading that he’d spend the rest of his days running from everything alongside his brother. She reassured him that someday, a long time from then, he would eventually find peace and a family and happiness.

They disappeared one by one as each encounter ended, until all that was left was Jean and her husband’s conscious self, without any of his pasts burdening him. He was almost free…

_Just one more. Can’t find it…_

They looked, sifting through mental sand in search of the last thing he had yet to place, a sliver of Logan’s life that Jean hadn’t been able to successfully uncover a few months back. It was hidden away from them, evasive, like a scared animal… and once she’d caught hold, she realized: not a scared animal, but a scared _child._ Because that was what this memory was about.

A thin, sick, thirteen-year-old James Howlett with his claws out for the first time, blood on them, his mother terrified to look at him which only made him more scared. It drove him to run alongside Victor, to escape. This boy was afraid of himself, he didn’t know what he was or if anyone could ever love him again.

Jean reached out to his scared piece of memory, the fears of being an unlovable monster. His oldest misconception about himself had begun when he was so young and vulnerable… no wonder she’d never truly convinced him. He didn’t know how to think different. She knelt in front of the boy in the memory, gathering him in for a secure hug. She told him he’d be big and strong and smart and handsome in no time, and he’d do important things, and someday he’d meet her and find love. Because he was lovable. Jean could feel that about him, that in spite of Victor generally being a bad influence, he was a gentle, compassionate child.

Jean embraced him until he’d finally vanished like the others, finding herself once again crouched before the wolf, who was also steadily fading into the grayness. That was when it hit her - this was Logan’s attempt to give them both closure. His time was running short, now.

_Shhh, don’t think ’bout it, darlin’,_ Logan whispered, wrapping himself around her the way he’d always done in the real world. _Don’t think ’bout it. You done so much for me a’ready…_

And for some reason, it was only now that Jean got desperate and simply panicked.

_*Logan, no, don’t do this, please don’t do this, you don’t have to go yet… we can get rid of the pain for you and you’ll have Thanksgiving and Christmas with us one more time. We can keep getting you blood, or, or maybe I could heal you with Phoenix, it’s probably powerful enough to fix your healing factor so you won’t be poisoned anymore. Just a little more time, please, Logan, just a little more…*_

_Time is it?_ he asked, like she hadn’t just sputtered all those irrational things at him.

Jean briefly checked the real world - _*It’s one in the morning, why?*_

_Just needed to get this far,_ Logan answered. His smile was tired and sad, but also genuine. _A whole year, baby. Just needed to make it a whole year, all I needed. Happy anniversary, Jeannie. Wish I could give you a better present than this… but it don’t hurt no more, baby, I promise. An’ someday you’re gonna find me again, right? I’ll wait for you right here, ’cause time ain’t a problem now, an’ you’re gonna come back to me. But no rush, okay?_

She could barely see him anymore, he was fading into the gray softness like all the parts of him had.

_*Logan…*_

_Shhh, baby, I know. Just remember it like this, okay? How my whole life was shit, but the very end was good ’cause you were in it. If all that was what I had to put up with to be with you, I’d ’a still done it all the same. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. No contest. _

_*I love you, Logan.*_

_I love you, too, Jeannie. I’ll be waitin’ for you like I said. No rush._

He vanished completely into the gray, and then the gray slipped off until she was alone in her own head. Opening her eyes, Jean realized she’d stayed holding his hand throughout the whole thing… and that the monitors on his body now said nothing.

Logan was gone.


	17. Monuments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter and it's a little short, but it felt like a great note to end on.

All Brian could think about was how much Logan would’ve hated this if he’d been around to comment. Everyone was all dressed up in nice clothes, the way things had been last year for the wedding, except now nobody was smiling. They were there to watch their teammate, their teacher, their friend, be put in the ground.

There were X-Men who’d died before, of course, like Mr. Summers’ older brother Alex, and so there was a spot on the grounds with memorials dedicated to these deceased heroes. They were cut from marble and very high-quality, but Brian had to wonder what the people they were imitating would’ve had to say about them. Havok, Banshee, Darwin… he didn’t know them. They’d died before he was born or at least before he’d come here. They were carved to look like they were in their X-Men gear, posed, to give the impression of some heroic battle.

It made Logan’s monument look stupid, because they’d done the same thing for him. Armored combat uniform, knees slightly bent and glaring, his right arm was back like he was trying to shield some vulnerable person behind him, while his left fist was pointed forward with the claws extended. As an artist, Brian couldn’t help but think that it would’ve been far more lifelike (and dignified) to show him in ordinary clothes, maybe still with the claws out on one hand but standing normally and holding them up just to show what they were. Not this over-dramatic bullshit.

The inscription, though, was simple and effective: **JAMES “LOGAN” HOWLETT,** **_WOLVERINE._ ** **MARCH 23, 1832 - NOVEMBER 19, 2026.** **_BELOVED HUSBAND, FATHER, TEACHER, LEADER._ **

“Dad would say this is stupid,” Laura whispered, so softly only he would pick it up.

“This _is_ stupid,” Brian murmured back. “They’re making it all noble and shit.”

“Romanticizing,” Laura put in.

“Yeah, that. There wasn’t anything all smoothed over the way they’re saying about his life.”

In spite of all her carrying on in the months before, Laura seemed to be holding up surprisingly well now that it was over with. Brian sort of understood why, too - watching Logan slowly die had been exhausting, so even though it sucked that he was gone, the needless suffering was finally done. On the other hand, his aunt had all but died with him. Brian had heard her telling Hank yesterday that she’d done this to him, because she’d helped SHIELD arrest him and she hadn’t recognized his symptoms when she’d visited him in The Vault and how she’d stressed him into a heart attack which had just shortened his life even more; Aunt Jean was thoroughly convinced, somehow, that this was her fault, even though they all knew he was going to die for a long time.

They’d all been hanging around for a few minutes beforehand, quietly paying their respects and leaving small parting gifts at his ugly monument. Some were ordinary, expected things, like photos, but then there were more unusual offerings that Mr. Summers had commented would be disrespectful were this anyone else’s funeral - a beer coaster, a hockey puck with the Rangers logo on it. Jean, Brian and Laura had left nothing, because they’d already given him theirs. Since he’d passed along one of his tags to each of them, Brian and Laura had taken one of their tags and put in on his chain in return. Jean had wrapped some of her hair around one of his hands, because he’d loved her hair and she had some of his. His family’s parting gifts would be buried with him.

They were all sitting now, with warm coats on over their dress clothes because it was still November. People were taking turns to go up and say things about Logan, but Brian wasn’t listening. He and Laura were sitting on either side of Jean, both hugging her one-armed because she wasn’t saying anything and there were tears rolling down, which was how it had been for all of yesterday, too.

Brian had decided that he wouldn’t speak for this, because Laura was going to do it and she was a lot smarter than him. Plus he’d read what she’d written out for this, and thought it was great. So she should get to do it.

Laura and Jean were the last ones to talk, so Brian went up with his aunt for moral support. She recounted a few things about his uncle, and also a touching description of how she’d spent his last moments with him in his mind, both of them offering comfort to each other. They’d been together only five or six years, but Logan had loved Jean enough for a whole lifetime.

Then it was Laura’s turn.

“When I met my dad, he was scared of me,” she started. “Because he didn’t know me, and he still didn’t know who he was. And I didn’t know who I was yet, either. But after a little bit, he learned how to do things better. He was always here for me and Brian if he was able to. He yelled at us, but it was because he knew we could do better. He pushed us to be strong and think for ourselves. He taught us not to be what they tried to build us as in the lab. And that helped me learn who I am, because I always knew who he was, even when he didn’t. He was my dad. And that was all I needed from him. And that means I know who I am, too, because I’m his daughter, and that’s all he needed from me. So, I talked to Cyclops a couple weeks ago, because I still didn’t have a codename. I’m an X-Man, just like my dad, and since he’s not here anymore… now, his codename is mine. I asked him first and he said it was okay, and then I asked Cyclops and Cyclops said it was okay. So now, I’m Wolverine, just like my dad.”

* * *

 

After the funeral had ended and they’d put their real clothes back on, Brian and Laura met up out in the woods. They’d already agreed on this, because that fucking memorial statue bothered them. So now, they were out at Logan’s favorite rock, and they let out the claws on one hand to scratch lines into it. Laura’s two were first, diagonally, and then Brian’s four marks went diagonally in the opposite direction to make an X. Then they just sat for a moment.

“I bet he would’a been smoking through the whole thing if he was there today,” Brian remarked, studying the rock.

“Yeah. And getting pissed off at how glossed-over some of the things the other X-Men said were. But I bet he would’a cried at what Mom said about him, though.”

“Yeah, probably. Everyone else did.”

They were quiet for a long time.

“I think I started missing Dad before he was even gone,” Laura whispered. “Like, that life was already different. We just sort of had to learn to exist without him, even though he was still here. I hate that.”

“What would you say to him if he was here right now?” Brian asked, glancing to his cousin.

“Um… I would say, ‘Dad, I love you, and I’m sorry I broke your nose three times in the same day during training that one time even though it was really fun.’ Why, what would you say?”

“Prob’ly something real similar, except I never broke his nose, so I’d apologize for that time I tried to steal his truck and totaled it on an eighteen-wheeler.”

“He was so pissed,” Laura remembered, and for a brief moment they both giggled. “It’s stupid that we’re like this, though. Because Dad’s gone and someday Mom will be, too, and all the X-Men and all our friends. It’ll be just us two, living forever.”

“Yeah,” Brian agreed quietly. “The Lynx and the Wolverine, still kicking even when the rest’a the world’s done crumbling, huh? Unless we get decapitated.”

“I didn’t even know you knew that word.”

“My reading’s got a lot better,” he shrugged. Brian contemplated his ball-chain briefly, a double-sided tag with **LOGAN** and **WOLVERINE** stamped on opposite surfaces, while his own only read **X-57** on both sides. It gave him an idea. “Hey, Laura, we should get new tags.”

“What?”

“Just hear me out…”

* * *

 

Jean knew what she was doing probably wasn’t healthy, but at the moment, she couldn’t think of a single thing that could help her. She was sitting on the end of the bed, wrapped in one of Logan’s flannels and staring at a picture she’d forced him to have taken with her. It was from early in their relationship, before he’d started going gray, and she even looked young in the photo. The shirt itself was from the dirty pile, smelling like him and his soap and deodorant. Eventually even that little trace of him would be gone.

How were they so damn young and bright-eyed and happy in this picture? Jean didn’t remember. So much had happened leading up to them attaching themselves to each other, and even more had happened after. Now she would go to bed alone, and wake up alone, and come back up to her room after work and still be alone. The sheets would be cold and the air would be quiet. Jean didn’t think she could be more crippled if she’d lost both her legs instead of her husband.

A knock broke her out of her miserable contemplation: “Mom?”

Right, she had kids.

“Come in,” Jean called weakly, idly wiping her eyes on the sleeve of the shirt.

“Um, we did something for you,” Brian mumbled uncertainly as the pair came in. “’Cause there’s that place at the mall where you can get tags made and so we thought, or, um, I thought that, like-”

“Brian, just shut up,” Laura groaned, then turned and scooped up Logan’s wedding band from his desk. Jean had decided to hang onto it because she just couldn’t let go of such a significant piece of him. “Here.”

Jean watched her kids come the rest of the way over, Laura slipping the loop of dull adamantium onto a ball-chain with two tags rattling on it before holding it out.

“What’s this?” she asked, accepting the chain and holding it up to inspect.

“It was my idea,” Brian answered proudly.

“This way, you can wear all three of us on your neck,” Laura added.

They were double-sided tags like Logan’s had been; the first tag said **BRIAN CREED/LYNX** and the second one read **LAURA HOWLETT/WOLVERINE**. And then, of course, was Logan’s wedding ring. Jean smiled through her tears and slipped the chain around her neck, tucking it into her shirt, then stood up to hug her kids. She would still sleep and wake up alone, but the rest of the time, at least, she wasn’t as alone as she thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, thanks to everyone who read through the end, especially if you've read the whole series! I had a lot of fun writing this and I hope you liked reading it. Questions/comments/reviews always welcomed and encouraged! Happy reading guys! :)


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